The Heart of the Matter [antikvár]

To V. G., L. C. G., and F. C. G. No character in this book is based on that of a living person. The geographical background of the story is drawn from that part of West Africa of which I have had personal experience —that is inevitable—but I want to make it absolutely clear that no inhabitant, past or present, of that particular colony appears in my book. Even an imaginary colony must have its officials—a Commissioner of Police and a Colonial Secretary for example; I have a special reason for not wanting such characters in my book to be identified with real people, for I remember with very great gratitude the courtesy and consideration I received from the Colonial Secretary, the Commissioner of Police and their staffs in the colony where I worked in 1942-43. The poem quoted on page 288 is from Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke translated by J. D. Leishmann (Hogarth Press, 1941).