Graham Green

Graham Greene (1904–1991) was one of the most celebrated English novelists of the twentieth century. Born in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, he studied at Balliol College, Oxford, before working as a journalist and later serving in British Intelligence during World War II. His travels to turbulent places—Mexico, Vietnam, West Africa, and Cuba—provided rich material for his fiction, which explores moral ambiguity, faith, betrayal, and political corruption. A convert to Catholicism, Greene wove religious doubt and redemption into many of his works, and his atmospheric tales of seedy danger and moral crisis became known as "Greeneland."

Greene wrote prolifically across novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, and travel writing. His major novels include Brighton Rock (1938), a chilling portrait of a teenage gangster; The Power and the Glory (1940), about a fugitive whiskey priest in Mexico; The Heart of the Matter (1948), set in colonial West Africa; and The End of the Affair (1951), a poignant study of love, jealousy, and faith. Later masterpieces such as The Quiet American (1955), Our Man in Havana (1958), and The Human Factor (1978) cemented his reputation as a keen observer of international politics. His screenplay for The Third Man (1949) remains a classic of cinema. Greene died in Vevey, Switzerland, in 1991.