Ark of Martyrs: An Autobiography of V (Sming Sming Books, 2020) is a rewriting — or, in the author’s words, a “polyphonic replacement” — of Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novel, Heart of Darkness. In the vocal traditions of gospel, toasting, and rap, Allan deSouza (Department of Art Practice, UC Berkeley) substitutes Conrad’s words with ones that loosely rhyme. DeSouza’s resulting text creates a portrait of dystopian contemporary life, replete with unspeakable desires, political antagonisms, and legacies of war.

DeSouza is joined by Lawrence Cohen (Anthropology and South & Southeast Asian Studies).