Nostromo is a 1904 novel by Polish-born British novelist Joseph Conrad. Nostromo is set in the South American country of Costaguana (a fictional nation) which has a long history of tyranny, revolution and warfare, but has recently experienced a period of stability under the dictator "Ribiera", two characters dominate the narrative: Senor Gould and the eponymous anti-hero, the "incorruptible" Nostromo. Joseph Conrad (born Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski (3 December 1857 - 3 August 1924) was a Polish novelist who wrote in English, after settling in England. Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, though he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties . He wrote stories and novels, often with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit in the midst of an indifferent universe. He was a master prose stylist who brought a distinctly non-English tragic sensibility into English literature.