The Heart of the Matter

Description

'The truth, he thought, has never been of any real value to any human being. In human relations, kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths' Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JAMES WOOD Scobie, a police officer serving in a war-time West African state, is distrusted, being scrupulously honest and immune to bribery. But then he falls in love, and in doing so he is forced to betray everything he believes in, with drastic and tragic consequences.

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.

Primarily a novel about the moral consequences of religious belief, but it is almost as importantly a novel about colonialism * Independent * The most ingenious, inventive and exciting of our novelists, rich in exactly etched and moving portraits of real human beings -- V. S. Pritchett * The Times * Here is this man who can represent ordinary life, ordinary troubles, and make them exciting to read about -- Shirley Hazzard * Guardian *