Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Tragedy of the Korosko. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Tragedy of the Korosko (1898) is a novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was serialized a year earlier in The Strand magazine between May and December 1897, and was later turned into a play Fires of Fate. A group of European tourists are enjoying their trip to Egypt in the year 1895. They are sailing up the River Nile in "a turtle-bottomed, round-bowed stern-wheeler", the Korosko. They intend to travel to Abousir at the southern frontier of Egypt, after which the Dervish country starts. They are attacked and abducted by a marauding band of Dervish warriors. The novel contains a strong defence of British Imperialism and in particular the Imperial project in North Africa. It also reveals the very great suspicion of Islam felt by many Europeans at the time, a suspicion re-awakening as a result of interactions with Islam in Europe since 2010.