"Empty Chair": Greene's incomplete "whodunit"

The first chapter of an unfinished Graham Greene novel Empty Chair has been published by Strand magazine. Andrew Gulli (Managing Editor of Strand) and Professor Cedric Watts (Sussex University) discussed the recently discovered novella this morning on BBC Radio 4’s “Today” programme.

The manuscript, which was written in 1926 when the writer was aged 22, was recently found in the vaults of a university in Texas, and the 22,000 words of its five chapters have been transcribed by Prof. François Gallix (University of the Sorbonne, Paris).

To hear the broadcast again, just click the link here.

Cedric Watts adds that "Empty Chair is remarkably interesting with all sorts of anticipations of later Greene, including not only a theologically-sophisticated Roman Catholic priest but also a fishy and chubby character called Chub". Readers will remember that 1926 was the year in which Greene was converted to Catholicism after a period of instruction from a priest.

Humphrey Hawksley's Journey Without Maps

On Thursday 30th July 2009 from 11.00am to 11.30am BBC Radio 4 will broadcast “A Journey Without Maps” the third of nine programmes in its series “Crossing Continents”, as Humphrey Hawksley retraces the extraordinary journey undertaken on foot by Graham Greene from Sierra Leone across Liberia in 1935. He feasts on sardines and luncheon meat, meets the lightning makers and devil dancers and is involved in a near-fatal car crash. The reporter asks, “How has West Africa changed? Is it better or worse than it was seventy years ago?”

Humphrey Hawksley is a leading BBC foreign correspondent, author and commentator on world affairs. For more than twenty years he has reported on key trends, events and conflicts from all over the world, including Kosovo, Iraq, and Sri Lanka, from where he was expelled while covering the civil war. From 1990 he was based in Hong Kong, and in 1994 moved to Beijing to open the BBC's first television bureau in China.

He has written various novels, including Red Spirit (2001), The Third World War (2003) and Security Breach (which was first published as The History Book, and reprinted in 2008).

The photograph shows Humphrey at Pendembu Station in Sierra Leone with his copy of Greene’s novel Journey without Maps (1936), and you can learn more about his work and travels on his Blog:
http://www.humphreyhawksley.com/blog/

Dr. Chris Hull: Our Man in Havana

Dr. Chris Hull will speak to the Festival at 9.30am on Saturday 3rd October 2009 on the topic of "Prophecy and Comedy in Havana: Greene’s ‘entertainment’ and the Reality of British Diplomacy in Cuba". He is based at the University of Nottingham (UK), and his research, which focuses on the history of Anglo-Cuban relations from 1898 to 1964, offers an alternative to the plethora of historical studies undertaken along the Washington-Havana axis. Chris studied in Cuba for five months in 1997-98, where he witnessed both Che Guevara’s funeral (after the revolutionary’s remains were discovered and repatriated from Bolivia) and the visit of Pope John Paul II. His academic research has taken him to Cuba and the United States, but predominantly to the National Archives at Kew Gardens.

Chris’ talk marks the launch of what we hope will become an annual event, namely a talk on New Research on Graham Greene sponsored by the Graham Greene Birthplace Trust.

"Five Minutes, Mr. Welles"

At the Graham Greene International Festival on Friday 2nd October 2009 in the Civic Centre (Berkhamsted, UK), you can see a remarkable thirty-minute film titled Five Minutes, Mr. Welles (Brooklyn Hazelhurst, USA, 2005), starring Vincent D'Onofrio (above, seated on set) (who also directed the piece) and Janine Thériault (below).