Joseph Conrad - Tufão

"My task, which I strive to accomplish, is to use the power of the written word to lead the reader to listen, to feel—and above all, to see. That—and nothing more, and that is all."

"When Conrad published Typhoon in 1903 (a narrative of a linearity far removed from the long-term complexities he imagined at that time), he was already a recognized author of several literary works, some destined for future fame, such as "The Nigger of the Narcissus" (1897), "Youth" (1898), "Heart of Darkness" (1899), "Lord Jim" (1900); and with it he consummated his third and final central literary relationship with a sea storm.

This "Typhoon" could be taken as the sole pretext for words that would make magnificent a few descriptions of a raging sea, without much visible equivalent in the history of Literature, but in Conrad there is always the essential desire to show man as a non-autonomous creature, part of the element that surrounds him and bravely confronts it. He himself wrote, remembering this latent threat to men's lives at sea: "It seems that storms have been faced as personal enemies [...] but they are adversaries [that belong to the world], with tricks that we have to dissuade, overcome with violence, and with which we have to live day and night.»
[...]
When “Typhoon” was published as a book [...] Conrad felt tempted to dispel some misconceptions:
“As soon as Captain MacWhirr appeared before me, I saw that he was the man for the job. I don’t mean to say that I saw him in the flesh, or even that I came into contact with his prosaic spirit and his indomitable temperament. MacWhirr is not an acquaintance of a few hours, or a few weeks, or a few months. He is the product of twenty years of life. Of my own life. In him, conscious invention played little part. If it is true that Captain MacWhirr never walked or breathed in this world (which I would find, for my part, very difficult to believe), I can also assure my readers that he is absolutely authentic. And I can venture to guarantee the same with regard to all the details of the story, confessing also that the particular typhoon of the narrative is, in fact, from my personal experience.”

Aníbal Fernandes