In Search of a Character: Two African Journals

In Search of a Character: Two African Journals is a slim volume, part travel book, part novelist’s journal, first published in 1961. Greene set two of his novels in Africa; A Burnt-Out Case, set in the Belgian Congo, and The Heart of the Matter, set in Sierra Leone. This book contains the journals, not originally intended for publication, that Greene kept on journeys he made for research purposes before writing those two novels.

The first part, Congo Journal, mainly deals with his journey to the Belgian Congo in 1941 and the people he meets along the way. The second part, Convoy to West Africa, covers his journey to Sierra Leone in 1959. He made this trip with the story of his 1960 novel A Burnt-Out Case already partly written and it is apparent he is searching for characters to populate that story. Greene fans often find it interesting as a fascinating glimpse into the mind of the writer and of the man.