English Writer Graham Greene
Novelist, Short Story Writer, Playwright, Journalist, Critic
Feb 10, 2008
Graham Greene, one of the greatest and most popular English writers of the 20th century, is famous for bestselling novels like Brighton Rock, The Third Man, The Quiet American, and Our Man in Havana. Some of them became successful films.
His writings deal with moral issues, and many have exotic settings. Greene gathered materials for these settings during his travels all over the world. A prolific writer, he wrote novels, short stories, biographies and plays, travel books, as well as film criticism.
Early Life of Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene (1904-1991), was born in Berkhamsted and educated in a local school there, and later, at Balliol College, Oxford.
Greene began his career, aged 21, as a journalist in London. He published his first novel, The Man Within, a few years later. Its success allowed him to leave journalism. Later he was employed by the Foreign Office during World War II. In the 1950s and '60s he was involved with Britain's Secret Intelligences Service. Many of Greene's novels feature political intrigue.
Greene the Novelist
Greene's first popular success was the spy story Stamboul Train published when he was 28. He called his other thrillers 'entertainments' including A Gun for Sale, The Confidential Agent, and The Third Man, among his many novels that were made into movies.
The Roman Catholic Writer
Greene became a Roman Catholic in 1926, and his religion became an important element in several of his novels, including Brighton Rock, the story of a teenage criminal in an English seaside resort; The Power and the Glory, about a hunted, drunken priest in Mexico; The Heart of the Matter; The Quiet American; and A Burnt-Out Case, whose hero is a Roman Catholic architect in Central Africa.
Greene's Later Years
He wrote two autobiographies: A Sort of Life and Ways of Escape. In the first one, he tells how he played Russian roulette and how, aged 13, he tried to cut open his leg with a pen-knife.
He settled in Antibes at 62 and lived there for the rest of his life. Greene's life was complicated; he also played practical jokes. It's alleged he pretended that the manuscript of his novel The Tenth Man, published in 1985, had suddenly been found after 40 years – though he knew all the while where it was.
Works by Graham Greene
- The Man Within, 1929
- Stamboul Train, 1932
- The Basement Room and Other Stories, 1935
- A Gun for Sale, 1936
- Brighton Rock, 1938
- The Confidential Agent, 1939
- The Power and the Glory, 1940
- The Heart of the Matter, 1948
- The Third Man, 1950
- The End of the Affair, 1951
- The Quiet American, 1955
- Our Man in Havana, 1958
- A Burnt-Out Case, 1961
- The Comedians, 1966
Sources:
Cambridge Guide to Literature in English by Ian Ousby (1993)
Larousse Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring (1994)
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