Hello,

I have been researching colonial novels in Mediterranean settings with characters I could represent in my rewrite. My original idea was to cover a French novel written during the colonization of Tunisia, Algeria or Morocco, unfortunately I could find none that were translated to English and/or with a substantial Mediterranean character. I then shifted my focus onto colonial novels written during the Egyptian colonization and came across a few novels: Alexandria Quartet, The rivers of Babylon, Islandia, and Almayer's Folly, but for the purposes of this assessment the most suitable novel with substantial representation of 'other' cultures was Almayer's Folly. This is a novel that was written by Joseph Conrad in 1895 and it was set in the 1800's and highlights the prejudices of that era well. It covers the story of Kasper Almayer, a Dutch trader who travels to the Malaysian jungle with a wealthy captain (Lingard) to trade and search for hidden treasures. During this time Almayer agrees to a marriage with Lingard's adopted Malaysian child whom the author Joseph Conrad depicts through colonial eyes common to the English writers of that era. From this loveless marriage Almayer has a daughter (Nina) whom he grows attached to and brings up in a 'European' manner and tries to prevent her from any Malaysian influence. Meanwhile his ventures for treasure and trade are failing and his wife leaves him. He has all his hopes on his daughter who's beauty he sees as European and would likely marry successfully to a European noble. However Nina grows increasingly close to Dain, a Malay prince and they end up eloping. This shatters Almayer's last hope of success in life and he spends the rest of his days in grief, poverty, addicted to opium and slowly losing his sanity leading ultimately to his death.

I am hoping to represent events from the point of view of Nina, Almayer's daughter, which I hope I can do justice to. I will try to cover the loveless marriage of her mother so in a way it will be similar to Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea where Antoinette retells the story from her childhood leading to the events of Jane Eyre.