About the Author
Razumov, a lonely Russian student, believes diligence and pragmatism will lift him above the tensions of an autocracy where the periodic assassination of gevernment officials appears to provide the only relief from relentless oppression. His life is transformed when he arrives home one evening to find his fellow student Haldin, a revolutionary and assassin, waiting in his flat. Razumov informs the authorities and is soon enmeshed in a web of counter-espionage and revolutionary intrigue. Sent on a mission to Geneva, a hotbed of émigré activity, Razumov's crisis deepens when he is drawn into a fateful relationship with Natalia, Haladin's sister. Under Western Eyes has been described as one of Conrad's most acutely personal and most distinctly Modernist novels. One of the first novels of espionage, it influenced the spy fiction of Graham Greene, W. Somerset Maugham and John Le Carré,