Joseph Conrad (born Teodor Józef Konrad Korzeniowski, 3 December 1857 3 August 1924) was a Polish-born novelist. Some of his works have been labelled romantic: Conrad’s supposed ‘romanticism’ is heavily imbued with irony and a fine sense of man’s capacity for self-deception. Many critics regard Conrad as an important forerunner of Modernist literature. Conrad’s narrative style and anti-heroic characters have influenced many writers, including Ernest Hemingway, D.H. Lawrence, Graham Greene, Joseph Heller and Jerzy Kosinski, as well as inspiring such films as Apocalypse Now (which was drawn from Conrad’s Heart of Darkness).