Graham Greene
(1904–1991)

The search for a source of inner peace, launched earlier in the century by such poets as William Butler Yeats and T.S. Eliot, continues up through our own time in the novels and short stories of Graham Greene. A religious convert like Eliot, Greene wrote—like Eliot—of pain, fear, despair, and alienation. His conclusion, which again mirrors the poet's, was that the ultimate key to salvation is a belief in God.

Greene was born in the town of Berkhamstead in Hertforshire and educated at Berkhamstead School, where his father was headmaster. Though his grades were good enough to earn him admission to Oxford, he disliked school, describing it later as his "first impression of hell."

Much of Greene's early working life was spent as a journalist and travel writer. His training in these areas helped him to develop the powers of keen observation, sensitivity to atmosphere, and simplicity of language that have become hallmarks of his fictional style. His journey to Mexico in 1938 provided the setting for his best-known novel, The Power and the Glory (1940). His trips to Africa resulted in travelogues as well as two novels, The Heart of the Matter (1944) and A Burnt-Out Case (1961).

Greene is also an author of books for children, an essayist, and an editor, and has enjoyed considerable success writing films and adapting his own stories for the screen. His cinematic work is tied to yet another outlet for his creativity, which Greene has called his "entertainments." These are adventures stories and spy thrillers, often dealing with the secret service and with pursuit. Among these are Our Man in Havana (1958) and The Human Factor (1978).

Greene's more serious work focuses more on the psychology of human character than on plot. Many of his protagonists are people without roots or beliefs—people in pain. They come across as real and believable individuals in whom good and evil, weakness and strength are intermingled. Though the characters in a Greene story often provide the reader with little reason for finding them likable, they almost always excite the reader's curiosity and pity—and, almost always, their author treats them with compassion.

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