Graham Greene (1904-1991), whose long life nearly spanned the
length of the twentieth century, was one of its greatest novelists.
Educated at Berkhamsted School and Balliol College, Oxford, he
started his career as a sub-editor of The Times of London. He began
to attract notice as a novelist with his fourth book, Orient
Express, in 1932. In 1935, he trekked across northern Liberia, his
first experience in Africa, recounted in A Journey Without Maps
(1936). He converted to Catholicism in 1926, an edifying decision,
and reported on religious persecution in Mexico in 1938 in The
Lawless Roads, which served as a background for his famous The
Power and the Glory, one of several "Catholic" novels (Brighton
Rock, The Heart of the Matter, The End of the Affair). During the
war he worked for the British secret service in Sierra Leone;
afterward, he began wide-ranging travels as a journalist, which
were reflected in novels such as The Quiet American, Our Man in
Havana, The Comedians, Travels with My Aunt, The Honorary Consul,
The Human Factor, Monsignor Quixote, and The Captain and the Enemy.
In addition to his many novels, Graham Greene wrote several
collections of short stories, four travel books, six plays, two
books of autobiography-A Sort of Life and Ways of Escape-two
biographies, and four books for children. He also contributed
hundreds of essays and film and book reviews to The Spectator and
other journals, many of which appear in the late collection
Reflections. Most of his novels have been filmed, including The
Third Man, which the author first wrote as a film treatment. Graham
Greene was named Companion of Honour and received the Order of
Merit among numerous other awards.
James Woodis a staff writer atThe New Yorker, a visiting lecturer
at Harvard, and the author of the national bestsellerHow Fiction
Worksand the novelThe Book Against God. He lives in Cambridge,
Massachusetts.
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