In Search Of Character

Greene set two of his novels in Africa, "A Burnt-Out Case" (Yonda leper colony) and "The Heart of the Matter" (the Congo). They arose from separate visits during which he kept journals. The journals are printed here and provide a glimpse of the novelist responding to the raw material of his art.

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To Graham Greene, 'Africa will always be the Africa of the Victorian atlas, the blank unexplored continent the shape of the human heart.' IN SEARCH OF A CHARACTER contains two African notebooks- Congo Journal, which records Graham Greene's travels in 1959, and his stay at the Yonda leper colony in the jungle which inspired the story for A Burnt-Out Case. Convoy to West Africa describes Greene's voyage in a cargo boat during the Second World War, from Liverpool to Freetown, Sierra Leone, the setting for THE HEART OF THE MATTER.