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.
Colm Tóibín is the award-winning author of five novels:The
South, winner of the Irish Times/Aer Lingus Literature
Prize; The Heather Blazing, winner of the Encore Award for
best second novel; The Story of the Night; The Blackwater
Lightship, which was a finalist for the Booker Prize and the
International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; and, most
recently, The Master, a finalist for the Man Booker
Prize. His non-fiction includes Bad Blood: A Walk Along
the Irish Border; Homage to Barcelona; The Sign of the
Cross: Travels in Catholic Europe; and, most recently, Love in
a Dark Time. He is also the co-author, with Carmen Callil,
of The Modern Library: The 200 Best Novels in English Since
1950. He lives in Dublin, Ireland.
The Human Factor is Greene’s most extensive attempt to incorporate into fiction what he had learned of espionage when recruited by MI6 during World War II . . . What it offers is a veteran excursion into Greene’s imaginative world . . . Sometimes seen as a brooding prober into the dark recesses of the soul where sins and scruples alike fester, he is equally at home in sending a narrative careering along at break-neck pace . . . Raising the demarcation line between ‘serious’ fiction and fast-plotted entertainment, Greene ensures that components of both jostle energizingly together in his pages.” –from the Introduction by Peter Kemp
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