Prior to writing these books, Butcher was an Africa correspondent for the Daily Telegraph of London, so his interest in Africa runs deep and he’s certainly no novice.īutcher, in his earnest preparations, uncovered some significant additions to the narrative of Graham Greene’s adventure, confirming notions that there was a secret mission by pinpointing his affiliation with a group called the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society. Livingstone, I presume?”), who made an expedition through Central Africa in the 1870s. Thematically similar, this book has him following the route of Henry Morton Stanley (of the famous “Dr. His previous book, Blood River: A Journey to Africa’s Broken Heart, offers perhaps a clue. This book illuminates not only Graham Greene’s trek through Liberia in the 1930s but also Butcher’s own strangely ambiguous interest in the country. In spite of the impracticality of this walk and his far-from-robust constitution, the trip perhaps laid groundwork for future international travels and an interest in intrigue, both of which greatly influenced his acclaimed novels such as The Heart of the Matter and The Quiet American. Some have suggested that there may have been something untoward in his relationship with the cousin she was an odd companion to his uninitiated trekker. Perhaps it was a timely escape from gloom, an antecedent to an as-yet unhappy marriage. Greene was himself an inexperienced traveler and this was a trip into a poorly-mapped region. He took along his younger socialite cousin for reasons unknown, most likely whim. It also gave him a new context in which to write that helped carve out his legacy. His idea was to travel overland through Liberia to satisfy his boyhood visions of adventure and exotic travel. Graham Greene’s Journey Without Maps was published in 1936 after he spent about four weeks trekking through Liberia.

And Tim Butcher tackles a more contemporary truth in his book Chasing the Devil, which follows the path Graham Greene took some 75 years earlier. Though I’m not sure Greene wanted to dissuade himself, Butcher is not so naïve. Both Graham Greene and Tim Butcher acknowledge a mythic transfixion. Even in an age when distance is collapsed and time is always, tirelessly immediate, Africa promises something far off and timeless. Africa is a place of imagination, a Western fixation.

Chasing the Devil by Tim Butcher