Publisher Description

Graham Greene's incredible journey to an unchartered land.The iconic writer's travel log from the uncharted shores of West Africa.Leaving Europe for the first time in his life, Graham Greene set out in 1935 to discover Liberia, then a virtually unmapped republic on the shores of West Africa. This captivating account of his arduous 350-mile journey on foot - a great adventure which took him from the border with Sierra Leone to the Atlantic coast at Grand Bassa - is as much a record of one young man's self-discovery as it is a striking insight into one of the few areas of Africa untouched by Western colonisation. Journey Without Maps is regarded as a masterclass in travel writing.WITH A FOREWORD BY TIM BUTCHER AND AN INTRODUCTION BY PAUL THEROUX'One of the best travel books this century' Independent

Notes

Graham Greene's incredible journey to an unchartered land.

Back Cover

WITH A FOREWORD BY TIM BUTCHER AND AN INTRODUCTION BY PAUL THEROUX In 1935 Graham Greene set off to discover Liberia, a remote and unfamiliar West African republic founded for released slaves. Crossing the red-clay terrain from Sierra Leone to the coast at Grand Bassa with a chain of porters, he came to know one of the few areas of Africa untouched by Western colonisation.

Author Biography

Graham Greene was born in 1904. He worked as a journalist and critic, and in 1940 became literary editor of the Spectator. He was later employed by the Foreign Office. As well as his many novels, Graham Greene wrote several collections of short stories, four travel books, six plays, three books of autobiography, two of biography and four books for children. He also wrote hundreds of essays, and film and book reviews. Graham Greene was a member of the Order of Merit and a Companion of Honour. He died in April 1991.

Review

One of the best travel books this century * Independent *
No one who reads this book will question the value of Greene's experiment, or emerge unshaken by the penetration, the richness, the integrity of this moving record * Guardian *
His originality lay in his gifts as a traveller. He had the foreign ear and eye for the strangeness of ordinary life and its ordinary crises
Journey Without Maps and The Lawless Roads reveal Greene's ravening spiritual hunger, a desperate need to touch rock bottom both within the self and in the humanly created world * Times Higher Education Supplement *

Promotional

'One of the best travel books this century' Independent

Kirkus UK Review

In 1936 Graham Greene undertook his 'journey without maps' to Liberia. He was 31 and had never travelled outside Europe. This account of his treacherous 350-mile walk through virgin forest is re-published with a preface written by Greene in 1946. At the time of his journey Liberia was unmapped territory where the British were content to leave blank spaces and the Americans fill them with the single word 'cannibals'. Greene tells of his encounters with village chiefs who had to be 'dashed' with chickens and whisky, lone Dutch prospectors, and an English medical missionary 'body and nerves worn threadbare by ten years' unselfish work'. He tries to understand the power of the village devils and the bush schools. In that now vanished world he learns how to encourage his child-like porters when they are on the brink of mutiny, but also to trust them. In a chapter headed 'Civilized Man' he marvels at their delight in the full moon celebrations and regrets his own world's lost contact with the lunar influence. The boredom of travel is well brought out - Greene tries to relieve the monotony of a five-hour march by thinking of his next book, but is afraid to concentrate on it for too long 'for then there might be nothing to think about next day'. Near the border with French Guinea he experiences the happiness and freedom of Africa for the first time. When he finally reaches the coast he is at the point of exhaustion - and the end of the whisky. His experiment - his search for the heart of darkness in Africa - is related with compassion and originality. His descriptions of towns such as Dakar, of characters like the Dictator of Grand Bassa and the exiles marooned in their legations in Monrovia are vintage Greene. (Kirkus UK)

Review Text

One of the best travel books this century

Review Quote

"One of the best travel books this century." Independent "Journey Without MapsandThe Lawless Roadsreveal Greene's ravening spiritual hunger, a desperate need to touch rock bottom both within the self and in the humanly created world." Times Higher Education Supplement

Promotional "Headline"

Graham Greene's incredible journey to an unchartered land.

Details