Plan: General Background. " The Angry Young Man"

Graham Greene (1904 - 1991)
A great-nephew of Robert Louis Stevenson, Greene was the son of a school headmaster in Hertfordshire. Graham attended his fathers school, studied at the Oxford University. In the year of graduation (1925) he published a book of poetry "Babbling April". During the next two years he married, became a journalist (even­tually joined the staff of the London "Times" and converted to Roman Catholicism. After the publication of his first novel "The Man Within"( 1929) he left the "Times" and became a free-lance writer and reviewer. He had a versatile talent being equally good as a novelist, essayist, short-story writer and a playwright.
Greene is both a prolific writer and an experienced traveler, and over the years his novels have been set in a number of exotic places. "Stamboul Train" (1932) is about adventures in the Orient Express; "The Power and the Glory" (1940) - in Mexico; "The Heart of the Matter" (1948) - in Nigeria; "The Quiet American" (1956) - in Vietnam; "A Burnt-Out Case" (1961) - in Central Africa; "The Comedians" (1966) - in Haiti; "The Honorary Consul" (1973) - in Argentina.
Two important influences on Greene's writing have been his Catholicism and the cinema. As a Catholic, Greene reflects on his religious convictions and probes the nature of good and evil in both the personal and doctrinal level. Greene has done excellent work both as a film critic and as a screenwriter.
Greene is known as the author of two genres: psychological detective novels or "entertainments", and "serious novels", as he cal led them. Both novels and entertainments are marked by careful plotting and characterization, but in the "serious novels" the inner world of the characters is more complex and the psychological analysis becomes deeper. The "entertainments" are, for the most part, literary thrillers, such as "A Gun for Sale" (1936), "The Ministry of Fear" (1943), and "The Third Man" (1949). The novels belonging to the "serious" category are: "The Man Within" (1929), "It's a Battlefield (1934), "England Made Me" (1935), "Brighton Rock" (1938), "The Power and the Glory"( 1940), "The 1 leart of the Matter'"( 1948), "The End of the Affair"( 1951), "The Quiet American" (1955), "A Burnt-Out Case" (1961), "The Comedians" (1966).
"The Quiet American" is one of Graham Greene's best works of fifties. It marks a new stage in the development of his talent. In "The Quiet American", the author tells the truth about the war in Vietnam. The book deals with the war waged by the French colonizers against the Vietnamese people, who were fighting for their independence. It also presents the real nature of American diplomacy of that period. The novel conveys the idea that every nation has the right to decide its own future. Besides this, the author tries to convince the reader that no man, no journalist or writer in particular, can remain neutral; sooner or later he has to take sides. ,
Among his latest works, there are several novels: "Doctor Fisher of Geneva or the Bomb Party" (1980), "Monsignor Quixote" (1982), "Getting to Know the General" (1984), "The Tenth Man (1985), "The Captain and the Enemy" (1988). Besides, he wrote two volumes of autobiographies: "A Sort of Life" (1971) and "Ways of Escape" (1980).