In September 1958, Greene began pursuing the idea for a novel about a stranger who unexpectedly shows up at a remote leper colony overseen by a religious order. To this end, he contacted his Belgian friend Baroness Lambert and sought her help in regard to spending several weeks in the heart of Equatorial Africa. On 3 February 1959, he arrived at the Leprosy Centre at Yonda and began framing the background material for
A Burnt-Out Case(1960). In his dedication of the book to Dr. Lechat, Greene writes: “This is not a
roman a clef, but an attempt to give dramatic expression to various types of belief, half-belief, and non-belief, in the kind of setting removed from world politics and household-preoccupations, where such differences are felt acutely and find expression” (6).
The novel
2469 words
Citation: Nordgren, Joe. "A Burnt-Out Case". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 January 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=13312, accessed 25 November 2024.]
