Victory

Joseph Conrad’s Victory tells the story of Axel Heyst, a reclusive Swedish man who lives a solitary life on the island of Samburan in Southeast Asia. During a stay at a hotel on the nearby island of Java, Heyst encounters Lena, a young musician traveling with an orchestra. Witnessing Lena’s mistreatment by the orchestra’s conductor and his wife, as well as the sexual threats by the hotel’s owner, Schomberg, Heyst decides to help Lena escape the orchestra and brings her to his island, where they fall in love. But Schomberg, filled with jealousy and rage, takes his revenge by sending three bandits to the island, promising them the fortune Heyst supposedly hid there.

First published in 1915, Victory has a four-part structure, switching between different narrative perspectives to tell the stories of Heyst, Schomberg, and Lena.