The Heart is Another Country grew out of my reading of Conrad's Heart of Darknes s. The novel is an account of a journey into unknown territory in search of an extraordinary individual, the enigmatic trader Kurtz, reputedly an embodiment of civilised virtues in a savage land. When he is found, Kurtz turns out to have become a corrupt monster. On one level the book is a condemnation of colonial exploitation, but it has much deeper resonances. The Heart is Another Country might be imagined as the remnant of such a journey, a collection of objects plundered from a remote and savage place.