Few writers have had such an extensive output of work as Jack London. During his 15-year career, he wrote 49 books, including novels, short-story collections, plays and political pamphlets – a number equalling more than three books a year. Jack London, led a turbulent and dramatic life, and much of his writing was inspired by his own life experiences from the 1890s gold rush in Alaska to the sordid slums of East-End London. London is able to pierce the stereotype of his era concerning the "Noble Savage" and present the people who lived on these exotic islands as individuals who had to deal with the white man's intrusions, the racism, foreign diseases, biased legal systems, and brutality. South Sea Tales are based on the themes Jack London considered most important: race, culture, justice, and heroism. His tale Mauki was first published in 1909. Mauki is a coal-black young Solomon Islander who has been forced into a long-term slavish contract as a plantation labourer under the severest discipline imaginable. This is the story of the hardships he endured, of his numerous and often bloody and always-severely-punished attempts to escape, and in general of what it was like in the early days of the 20th Century to be what can safely be described as a basically very savage stone-age head-hunting Melanesian islander trying to come to terms with the encroachments of the white man and his all-conquering civilization. Listen online to free English audiobook "Mauki” on our website to experience Jack London's short story.
