A Burnt-Out Case

A Burnt-Out Case, novel by Graham Greene, published in 1961, that examines the possibility of redemption.

The story opens as Querry, a European who has lost the ability to connect with emotion or spirituality, arrives at a church-run leprosarium in the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). His spiritual aridity is likened to a medical burnt-out case—a leper who is in remission but who has been eaten up by his disease. Querry is invigorated by his contact with the leprosarium and its inhabitants, and he begins to come to life. Parkinson, an opportunistic journalist, discovers that Querry is a distinguished church architect with a lurid past and begins to write sensationalized newspaper articles about him. When Querry innocently consoles the wife of the manager of a local factory, he is shot dead by her husband.