Graham Greene (author)

Graham Greene in 1939

Henry Graham Greene, OM, CH (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English novelist and author regarded as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene had acquired a reputation early in his own lifetime as a great writer, both of serious Catholic novels and of thrillers (or "entertainments " as he termed them); however, even though shortlisted in 1967, he was never awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature Through 67 years of writings which included over 25 novels, he explored the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world through a Catholic perspective.

Although Greene objected strongly to being described as a Roman Catholic novelist rather than as a novelist who happened to be Catholic, Catholic religious themes are at the root of much of his writing, especially the four major Catholic novels: Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory, The Heart of the Matter and The End of the Affair; which are regarded as "the gold standard" of the Catholic novel. Several works such as The Confidential Agent, The Third Man, The Quiet American, Our Man in Havana and The Human Factor also show an avid interest in the workings of international politics and espionage.

Greene was born into a large, influential family that included the owners of the Greene King Brewery. He was born in and boarded at Berkhamsted School in Hertfordshire, England, where his father taught and became head master. He was unhappy at the school, and attempted suicide several times. He went up to Balliol College, Oxford to study history, where while an undergraduate he published his first work in 1925, a poorly received volume of poetry, Babbling April. After graduating Greene worked for a period of time as a private tutor and then turned to journalism – first on the Nottingham Journal, and then as a sub-editor on The Times. He converted to Catholicism in 1926, after meeting his future wife, Vivien Greene. He published his first novel, The Man Within, in 1929; favorable reception enabled him to work full-time as a novelist. He supplemented his novelist's income with freelance journalism, book and film reviews. His 1937 film review of Wee Willie Winkie, for the British journal Night and Day, which commented on the nine-year-old star, Shirley Temple's sexuality, provoked Twentieth Century Fox to sue, which prompted Greene to live in Mexico until after the trial was over. While in Mexico, Greene developed the ideas for the novel considered his masterpiece, The Power and the Glory. Greene originally divided his fiction into two genres: thrillers such as The Ministry of Fear, which he described as entertainments, often with notable philosophic edges; and literary works, such as The Power and the Glory, which he described as novels, on which he thought his literary reputation was to be based.

Greene suffered from bipolar disorder, which had a profound effect on his writing and personal life. In a letter to his wife Vivien, he told her that he had "a character profoundly antagonistic to ordinary domestic life", and that "unfortunately, the disease is also one's material". William Golding described Greene as "the ultimate chronicler of twentieth-century man's consciousness and anxiety." He died in 1991 at age 86 of leukemia and was buried in Corseaux cemetery.