BBC's Humphrey Hawksley's Journey Without Maps

Graham Greene has been much in the news recently, and, if you have missed anything by Humphrey Hawksley (BBC World Affairs Correspondent) about West Africa, here is your chance to catch up.

Greene's Journey without Maps (1935) follows the writer’s journey through Sierra Leone and Liberia. He ran into drunken politicians, war lords, Christian missionaries, secret societies and chiefs with total power over their villages. The book questions the intentions of the West in Africa, and asks overarching questions. What were the whites --- as Greene then called the West --- actually doing there? Were they destined to failure? And would Africa always have the last “say”? In the last ten years --- with Britain taking the lead --- the West has intervened in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Humphrey Hawksley has retraced Greene's journey and reported on whether eighty years later the West's presence in Africa has changed, and to see what has changed and what has not.

Click here to listen again to Humphrey Hawksley’s report which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday 30th July 2009. The recording is timed at 8.45am, and lasts for 3 minutes 46 seconds.

Click here to watch Humphrey Hawksley’s film “Dancing with the Devil” in the series “Our World”. The film has been televised at various times this weekend on BBC News 24 and previously on BBC America.

Click here to read the report on the BBC news website.

Click here to view the website of Humphrey Hawksley, who may be able to visit the Graham Greene International Festival in October 2010, if his schedule permits.