TY - JOUR TI - An unwritten Tristes Tropiques: Claude Lévi-Strauss and Joseph Conrad AU - Pacukiewicz, Marek TI - An unwritten Tristes Tropiques: Claude Lévi-Strauss and Joseph Conrad AB - In an interview with Didier Eribon, Claude Lévi-Strauss admitted that he wished he had written Joseph Conrad’s books. It seems that once he even started writing a “Conradian” novel entitled Tristes Tropiques, but the only known fragment of this novel would seem to be the description of a sunset, which has become part of another book of the same title containing reminiscences from his journeys. In what way, then, did Conrad infl uence this unusual book by Lévi-Strauss? There are certainly similarities between the works of both writers. Apart from a similarity of literary form and cultural substance, we can fi nd a unique “optical experience” (Dariusz Czaja) in their descriptions of sunsets, which I interpret as a substructure of their studies of the world, culture and human knowledge. VL - 2011 IS - Vol. VI PY - 2012 SN - 1899-3028 C1 - 2084-3941 SP - 43 EP - 56 DO - 10.4467/20843941YC.11.005.0029 UR - https://ejournals.eu/czasopismo/yearbook-of-conrad-studies/artykul/an-unwritten-tristes-tropiques-claude-levi-strauss-and-joseph-conrad KW - cultural anthropology KW - Conrad studies KW - Tristes Tropiques