
, CH
(2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English
author
, playwright
and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world. Greene was notable for his ability to combine serious literary acclaim with widespread popularity.
Although Greene objected strongly to being described as a Roman Catholic novelist rather than as a novelist who happened to be Catholic, Catholic religious themes
are at the root of much of his writing, especially the four major Catholic novels: Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory
, The Heart of the Matter
and The End of the Affair
.
Have you seen a room from which faith has gone?...Like a marriage from which love has gone...And patience, patience everywhere like a fog.
The economy of a novelist is a little like that of a careful housewife who is unwilling to throw away anything that might perhaps serve its turn. Perhaps the comparison is closer to the Chinese cook who leaves hardly any part of a duck unserved.
It is the story-teller's task to elicit sympathy and a measure of understanding for those who lie outside the boundaries of State approval.
Morality comes with the sad wisdom of age, when the sense of curiosity has withered.
My two fingers on a typewriter have never connected with my brain. My hand on a pen does. A fountain pen, of course. Ball-point pens are only good for filling out forms on a plane.
A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction.
The world is not black and white. More like black and grey.
That instinct for human character that is perhaps inherent in an imaginative writer.
A major character has to come somehow out of the unconscious.
The moment comes when a character does or says something you hadn't thought about. At that moment he's alive and you leave it to him.
, CH
(2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English
author
, playwright
and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world. Greene was notable for his ability to combine serious literary acclaim with widespread popularity.
Although Greene objected strongly to being described as a Roman Catholic novelist rather than as a novelist who happened to be Catholic, Catholic religious themes
are at the root of much of his writing, especially the four major Catholic novels: Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory
, The Heart of the Matter
and The End of the Affair
. Several works such as The Confidential Agent
, The Third Man
, The Quiet American
, Our Man in Havana
and The Human Factor
also show an avid interest in the workings of international politics and espionage.
Greene suffered from bipolar disorder
, which had a profound effect on his writing and personal life. In a letter to his wife Vivien, he told her that he had "a character profoundly antagonistic to ordinary domestic life", and that "unfortunately, the disease is also one's material".
Early years
Henry Graham Greene was born in 1904 in St. John’s House, a boarding houseof Berkhamsted School on Chesham Road in Berkhamsted
, Hertfordshire, England, where his father was housemaster. He was the fourth of six children; his younger brother, Hugh
, became Director-General of the BBC
, and his elder brother, Raymond
, an eminent physician and mountaineer.
His parents, Charles Henry Greene and Marion Raymond Greene, were second cousins
; both members of a large, influential family that included the owners of Greene King brewery, bankers and businessmen. Charles Greene was Second Master at Berkhamsted School, where the headmaster was Dr Thomas Fry
, who was married to Charles' cousin. Another cousin was the right-wing pacifist Ben Greene
, whose politics led to his internment during World War II.
In 1910 Charles Greene succeeded Dr Fry as headmaster of Berkhamsted. Graham also attended the school as a boarder. Bullied and profoundly depressed he made several suicide attempts; including, as he wrote in his autobiography, by Russian roulette
and by taking aspirin before going swimming in the school pool. In 1920, aged 16, in what was a radical step for the time, he was sent for psychoanalysis
for six months in London, afterwards returning to school as a day student. School friends included Claud Cockburn
the satirist, and Peter Quennell
the historian.
In 1922 he was for a short time a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain
.
In 1925, while an undergraduate at Balliol College, Oxford
, his first work, a poorly received volume of poetry entitled Babbling April, was published. Greene suffered from periodic bouts of depression whilst at Oxford, and largely kept to himself. Of Greene's time at Oxford, his contemporary Evelyn Waugh
noted that: "Graham Greene looked down on us (and perhaps all undergraduates) as childish and ostentatious. He certainly shared in none of our revelry".
Early career
After graduating with a second-class degreein history, he worked for a period of time as a private tutor and then turned to journalism – first on the Nottingham
Journal, and then as a sub-editor
on The Times
. While in Nottingham he started corresponding with Vivien Dayrell-Browning
, a Catholic convert, who had written to him to correct him on a point of Catholic doctrine. Greene was an agnostic at the time, but when he began to think about marrying Vivien, it occurred to him that, as he puts it in A Sort of Life, he "ought at least to learn the nature and limits of the beliefs she held". In his discussions with the priest to whom he went for instruction, he argued "on the ground of dogmatic atheism", as his primary difficulty was what he termed the "if" surrounding God's existence. However, he found that "after a few weeks of serious argument the 'if' was becoming less and less improbable". Greene converted to Catholicism in 1926 (described in A Sort of Life) when he was baptised in February of that year. He married Vivien in 1927; and they had two children, Lucy Caroline (b. 1933) and Francis (b. 1936). In 1948 Greene separated amicably from Vivien. Although he had other relationships, he never divorced or remarried.
Novels and other works
Greene's first published novel was The Man Within(1929). Favourable reception emboldened him to quit his sub-editor job at The Times and work as a full-time novelist. The next two books, The Name of Action (1930) and Rumour at Nightfall (1932), were unsuccessful; and he later disowned them. His first true success was Stamboul Train
(1932) which was taken on by the Book Society and adapted as the film Orient Express (1934).
He supplemented his novelist's income with freelance journalism, book and film reviews for The Spectator, and co-editing the magazine Night and Day
, which folded in 1937. Greene's film review of Wee Willie Winkie
, featuring nine-year-old Shirley Temple
, cost the magazine a lost libel lawsuit. Greene's review stated that Temple displayed "a dubious coquetry" which appealed to "middle-aged men and clergymen". It is now considered one of the first criticisms of the sexualisation of children for entertainment.
Greene originally divided his fiction into two genres: thrillers (mystery and suspense
books), such as The Ministry of Fear
, which he described as entertainments, often with notable philosophic edges, and literary works, such as The Power and the Glory
, which he described as novels, on which he thought his literary reputation was to be based.
As his career lengthened, both Greene and his readers found the distinction between entertainments and novels increasingly problematic. The last book Greene termed an entertainment was Our Man in Havana
in 1958. When Travels with My Aunt
was published eleven years later, many reviewers noted that Greene had designated it a novel, even though, as a work decidedly comic in tone, it appeared closer to his last two entertainments, Loser Takes All
and Our Man in Havana
, than to any of the novels. Greene, they speculated, seemed to have dropped the category of entertainment. This was soon confirmed. In the Collected Edition of Greene's works published in 22 volumes between 1970 and 1982, the distinction between novels and entertainments is no longer maintained. All are novels.
Greene also wrote short stories and plays, which were well-received, although he was always first and foremost a novelist. He collected the 1948 James Tait Black Memorial Prize
for The Heart of the Matter
. In 1986, he was awarded Britain's Order of Merit
.
Greene was one of the most "cinematic" of twentieth century writers; most of his novels and many of his plays and short stories would eventually be adapted for film or television. The Internet Movie Database
lists 66 titles based on Greene material between 1934 and 2010.
Some novels were filmed more than once, such as Brighton Rock in 1947 and 2011, The End of the Affair
in 1955 and 1999, and The Quiet American
in 1958 and 2002
. The early thriller A Gun for Sale
was filmed at least five times under different titles. He also wrote several original screenplays. In 1949, after writing the novella as "raw material", he wrote the screenplay for the classic film noir
, The Third Man
, featuring Orson Welles
. In 1983, The Honorary Consul
, published ten years earlier, was released as a film under its original title
, starring Michael Caine
and Richard Gere
. Michael Korda
, the famous author and Hollywood script-writer, contributed a foreword and introduction to this novel in a commemorative edition.
In 2009 The Strand Magazine began to publish in serial form a newly discovered Greene novel entitled The Empty Chair. The manuscript was written in longhand when Greene was 22 and newly converted to Catholicism.
Travel
Throughout his life Greene travelled far from England, to what he called the world's wild and remote places. The travels led to him being recruited into MI6by his sister, Elisabeth, who worked for the organisation; and he was posted to Sierra Leone
during the Second World War. Kim Philby
, who would later be revealed as a Soviet double agent, was Greene's supervisor and friend at MI6. As a novelist he wove the characters he met and the places where he lived into the fabric of his novels.
Greene first left Europe at 30 years of age in 1935 on a trip to Liberia
that produced the travel book Journey Without Maps
. His 1938 trip to Mexico, to see the effects of the government's campaign of forced anti-Catholic secularisation, was paid for by Longman
's, thanks to his friendship with Tom Burns
. That voyage produced two books, the factual The Lawless Roads
(published as Another Mexico in the U.S.) and the novel The Power and the Glory
. In 1953 the Holy Office
informed Greene that The Power and the Glory
was damaging to the reputation of the priesthood; but later, in a private audience with Greene, Pope Paul VI
told him that, although parts of his novels would offend some Catholics, he should not pay attention to the criticism. Greene travelled to Haiti
which was under the rule of dictator François Duvalier
, known as "Papa Doc", where the story of The Comedians
(1966) took place. The owner of the Hotel Oloffson
in Port-au-Prince
, where Greene frequently stayed, named a room in his honour.

Final years
After falling victim to a financial swindler, Greene chose to leave Britain in 1966, moving to Antibes, to be close to Yvonne Cloetta, whom he had known since 1959, a relationship that endured until his death. In 1973, Greene had an uncredited cameo appearance
as an insurance company representative in François Truffaut
's film Day for Night
. In 1981 he was awarded the Jerusalem Prize
, awarded to writers concerned with the freedom of the individual in society. One of his final works, the pamphlet J'Accuse – The Dark Side of Nice (1982), concerns a legal matter embroiling him and his extended family in Nice
. He declared that organized crime flourished in Nice, because the city's upper levels of civic government had protected judicial and police corruption. The accusation provoked a libel lawsuit that he lost. In 1994, after his death, he was vindicated, when the former mayor of Nice, Jacques Médecin
, was imprisoned for corruption and associated crimes.
He lived the last years of his life in Vevey
, on Lake Geneva, in Switzerland, the same town Charlie Chaplin
was living in at this time. He visited Chaplin often, and the two were good friends. His book Doctor Fischer of Geneva or the Bomb Party
(1980) bases its themes on combined philosophic and geographic influences. He had ceased going to mass and confession in the 1950s, but in his final years began to receive the sacraments again from Father Leopoldo Durán, a Spanish priest, who became a friend. He died at age 86 of leukemia
in 1991 and was buried in Corseaux
cemetery.
Greene's literary agent was Jean LeRoy of Pearn, Pollinger & Higham
.
Writing style and themes
The literary style of Graham Greene was described by Evelyn Waugh in Commonwealas "not a specifically literary style at all. The words are functional, devoid of sensuous attraction, of ancestry, and of independent life". Commenting on this lean, realistic prose and its readability, Richard Jones wrote in the Virginia Quarterly Review that "nothing deflects Greene from the main business of holding the reader's attention." His novels often have religious themes at the centre. In his literary criticism he attacked the modernist
writers Virginia Woolf
and E. M. Forster
for having lost the religious sense which, he argued, resulted in dull, superficial characters, who "wandered about like cardboard symbols through a world that is paper-thin". Only in recovering the religious element, the awareness of the drama of the struggle in the soul carrying the infinite consequences of salvation and damnation, and of the ultimate metaphysical
realities of good and evil, sin and divine grace
, could the novel recover its dramatic power. Suffering and unhappiness are omnipresent in the world Greene depicts; and Catholicism is presented against a background of unvarying human evil, sin, and doubt. V. S. Pritchett
praised Greene as the first English novelist since Henry James
to present, and grapple with, the reality of evil. Greene concentrated on portraying the characters' internal lives – their mental, emotional, and spiritual depths. His stories often occurred in poor, hot, and dusty tropical backwaters, such as Mexico, West Africa, Vietnam, Cuba, Haiti, and Argentina, which led to the coining of the expression "Greeneland" to describe such settings.
The novels often powerfully portray the Christian drama of the struggles within the individual soul from the Catholic perspective. Greene was criticised for certain tendencies in an unorthodox direction – in the world, sin is omnipresent to the degree that the vigilant struggle to avoid sinful conduct is doomed to failure, hence not central to holiness. Friend and fellow Catholic Evelyn Waugh
attacked that as a revival of the Quietist
heresy. This aspect of his work also was criticised by the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar
, as giving sin a mystique. Greene responded that constructing a vision of pure faith and goodness in the novel was beyond his talents. Praise of Greene from an orthodox Catholic point of view by Edward Short is in Crisis Magazine, and a mainstream Catholic critique is presented by Joseph Pearce
.
Catholicism's prominence decreased in the later writings. According to Ernest Mandel in his Delightful Murder: a Social History of the Crime Story: "Greene started out as a conservative agent of the British intelligence services, upholding such reactionary causes as the struggle of the Catholic Church against the Mexican revolution (The Power and the Glory, 1940), and arguing the necessary merciful function of religion in a context of human misery (Brighton Rock, 1938; The Heart of the Matter, 1948). The better he came to know the socio-political realities of the third world where he was operating, and the more directly he came to be confronted by the rising tide of revolution in those countries, the more his doubts regarding the imperialist cause grew, and the more his novels shifted away from any identification with the latter." The supernatural realities that haunted the earlier work declined and were replaced by a humanistic
perspective, a change reflected in his public criticism of orthodox Catholic teaching. Left-wing political critiques assumed greater importance in his novels: for example, years before the Vietnam War, in The Quiet American
he prophetically attacked the naive and counterproductive attitudes that were to characterize American policy in Vietnam. The tormented believers he portrayed were more likely to have faith in communism than in Catholicism.
In his later years Greene was a strong critic of American imperialism, and supported the Cuban leader Fidel Castro
, whom he had met. For Greene and politics, see also Anthony Burgess
' Politics in the Novels of Graham Greene. In Ways of Escape, reflecting on his Mexican trip, he complained that Mexico's government was insufficiently left-wing compared with Cuba's. In Greene's opinion, "Conservatism and Catholicism should be .... impossible bedfellows".
Despite his seriousness, Graham Greene greatly enjoyed parody, even of himself. In 1949, when the New Statesman
held a contest for parodies of Greene's writing style, he submitted an entry under the pen name "N. Wilkinson" and won second prize. His entry comprised the first two paragraphs of a novel, apparently set in Italy, The Stranger's Hand: An Entertainment. Greene's friend, Mario Soldati
, a Piedmont
ese novelist and film director, believed that it had the makings of a suspense film about Yugoslav
spies in postwar Venice
. Upon Soldati's prompting, Greene continued writing the story as the basis for a film script. Apparently he lost interest in the project, leaving it as a substantial fragment that was published posthumously in The Graham Greene Film Reader (1993) and No Man's Land (2005). The script for The Stranger's Hand was penned by veteran screenwriter Guy Elmes on the basis of Greene's unfinished story, and cinematically rendered by Soldati. In 1965 Greene again entered a similar New Statesman competition pseudonymously, and won an honourable mention.
Graham Greene International Festival
The Graham Greene International Festival is an annual four-day event of conference papers, informal talks, question and answer sessions, films, dramatised readings, music, creative writing workshops and social events. It is organised by the Graham Greene Birthplace Trust, and takes place in the writer's home town of Berkhamsted, on dates as close as possible to the anniversary of his birth. Its purpose is to promote interest in and study of the works of Graham Greene.Works
- The Man WithinThe Man WithinThe Man Within is the first novel by author Graham Greene. It tells the story of Francis Andrews, a reluctant smuggler, who betrays his colleagues and the aftermath of his betrayal...
(1929) - The Name of Action (1930)
- Rumour at NightfallRumour at NightfallRumour at Nightfall is the third novel by Graham Greene, published in 1931. Like his second novel it failed to repeat the success of The Man Within; Greene was to disown both....
(1931) - Stamboul TrainStamboul TrainStamboul Train is a novel by author Graham Greene. A thriller set on an Orient Express train, it was renamed Orient Express when it was published in the United States.-Plot introduction:...
(1932) - It's a BattlefieldIt's a BattlefieldIt's a Battlefield is an early novel by Graham Greene, first published in the year 1934. Graham Greene later described it as his "first overtly political novel"...
(1934) - England Made MeEngland Made Me (novel)England Made Me or The Shipwrecked is an early novel by Graham Greene. It was first published in 1935, and was republished as "The Shipwrecked" in 1953....
(also published as The Shipwrecked) (1935) - A Gun for SaleA Gun for SaleA Gun for Sale is a 1936 novel by Graham Greene.This novel was made into a film in 1941 and renamed This Gun for Hire, which was also the title of the book's U.S. edition. Alan Ladd was cast as Raven in the film....
(1936) - Brighton Rock (1938)
- The Confidential AgentThe Confidential AgentThe Confidential Agent is a thriller novel by British author Graham Greene. Fueled by Benzedrine, Greene wrote it in six weeks. To avoid distraction while working, he rented a room in Bloomsbury from a landlady who lived in an apartment below him. He used that apartment in the novel and had an...
(1939) - The Power and the GloryThe Power and the GloryThe Power and the Glory is a novel by British author Graham Greene. The title is an allusion to the doxology often added to the end of the Lord's Prayer: "For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, now and forever , amen." This novel has also been published in the US under the name The...
(1940) - The Ministry of FearThe Ministry of FearThe Ministry of Fear is a 1943 novel written by Graham Greene. It was first published in Britain by William Heinemann. It was made into the 1944 film Ministry of Fear, starring Ray Milland.It revolves around the relationship between Love and Fear...
(1943) - The Heart of the MatterThe Heart of the MatterThe Heart of the Matter , a novel by the English author Graham Greene, won the 1948 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. During World War II, Greene worked for the Secret Intelligence Service in Sierra Leone, the setting for his novel...
(1948) - The Third ManThe Third ManThe Third Man is a 1949 British film noir, directed by Carol Reed and starring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, and Trevor Howard. Many critics rank it as a masterpiece, particularly remembered for its atmospheric cinematography, performances, and unique musical score...
(1949) - The End of the AffairThe End of the AffairThe End of the Affair is a novel by British author Graham Greene, as well as the title of two feature films that were adapted for the screen based on the novel....
(1951) - Twenty-One StoriesTwenty-One StoriesTwenty-One Stories is a collection of short stories by Graham Greene. All but the last four stories appeared in his earlier 1947 collection Nineteen Stories -Stories:...
(1954) (short stories) - Loser Takes AllLoser Takes AllLoser takes all is a 1955 novel by British author Graham Greene.-Plot summary:Mr. Bertram and Cary are about to get married. An unambitious assistant accountant, Bertram's plans for marriage are not particularly exciting...
(1955) - The Quiet AmericanThe Quiet AmericanThe Quiet American is an anti-war novel by British author Graham Greene, first published in United Kingdom in 1955 and in the United States in 1956. It was adapted into films in 1958 and 2002. The book draws on Greene's experiences as a war correspondent for The Times and Le Figaro in French...
(1955)
- Our Man in HavanaOur Man in HavanaOur Man In Havana is a novel by British author Graham Greene, where he makes fun of intelligence services, especially the British MI6, and their willingness to believe reports from their local informants....
(1958) - A Burnt-Out CaseA Burnt-Out Case-Plot summary:The plot concerns Querry, who is the victim of a terrible attack of indifference, he no longer finds meaning in art or pleasure in life. Arriving anonymously at a Congo leper colony overseen by Catholic missionaries, he is diagnosed - by Dr Colin, the resident doctor - as the mental...
(1960) - A Sense of Reality (1963) (short stories)
- The ComediansThe Comedians (novel)The Comedians is a novel by Graham Greene, first published in 1966. Set in Haiti under the rule of François "Papa Doc" Duvalier and his secret police, the Tontons Macoute, The Comedians tells the story of a tired hotel owner, Brown, and his increasing fatalism as he watches Haiti descend into...
(1966) - May We Borrow Your Husband? (1967) (short stories)
- Travels with My AuntTravels with My AuntTravels with My Aunt is a novel written by English author Graham Greene.The novel follows the travels of Henry Pulling, a retired bank manager, and his eccentric Aunt Augusta as they find their way across Europe, and eventually even further afield...
(1969) - A Sort of Life (1971) (autobiography)
- The Honorary ConsulThe Honorary ConsulThe Honorary Consul is a British thriller novel by Graham Greene, published in 1973. It was one of the author's favourite works.- Plot summary :...
(1973) - The Human FactorThe Human FactorThe Human Factor is an espionage novel by Graham Greene, first published in 1978 and adapted into a 1979 film, directed by Otto Preminger using a screenplay by Tom Stoppard.-Plot summary:...
(1978) - Doctor Fischer of GenevaDoctor Fischer of GenevaDoctor Fischer of Geneva or The bomb party , is a novel by the English novelist Graham Greene.-Plot summary:The story is narrated by Alfred Jones, a translator for a large chocolate company in Switzerland. Jones, in his 50s, lost his left hand while working as a fireman during The Blitz. Jones is a...
(1980) - Ways of Escape (1980) (autobiography)
- Monsignor QuixoteMonsignor QuixoteMonsignor Quixote is a novel by Graham Greene, published in 1982. The book is a pastiche of the classic Spanish novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes with many moments of hilarious comedy, but also offers reflection on matters such as life after a dictatorship, Communism, and the Catholic...
(1982) - Getting to Know the General (1984) (nonfiction Panama memoir)
- The Tenth Man (1985)
- The Captain and the Enemy (1988)
- The Last Word (1990) (short stories)
- No Man's Land (2005)
External links
- Graham Greene Birthplace Trust
- Graham Greene Writeup in the Literary Encyclopedia
- "Graham Greene, terriblement anglais" by Frederic Raphael, 23 January 2008
- Biography at Authors' Calendar website
- The Paris Review Interview
- CatholicAuthors Biography by Joseph Pearce
- Graham Greene Collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at AustinUniversity of Texas at AustinThe University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
- Not Easy Being Greene: Graham Greene's Letters by Michelle Orange, The Nation, 15 April 2009