Chinua Achebe: Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is ‘Seductive’

From NPR’s All Things Considered:

ROBERT SIEGEL: Yes, I found the essay in which you write – you said: A time came when I reached the appropriate age and realized that these writers had pulled a fast one on me. I was not on Marlow’s boat steaming up the Congo in “Heart of Darkness.” Rather, I was one of those unattractive beings jumping up and down on the river bank making hard faces.

Mr. ACHEBE: Okay. All right. I’m glad you got that so well. That’s a point where you understand that two humanities. We are not all the same. And then I realized how terribly, terribly wrong it was to portray my people, any people, from that attitude, from that point of view.

Listen here.