The Quiet AmericanIntroduction by Robert Stone
Suggestions for Further Reading by Michael Gorra
The Quiet American
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.
Robert Stone is the author of seven novels: A Hall of
Mirrors, Dog Soldiers (winner of the National Book Award), A Flag
for Sunrise, Children of Light, Outerbridge Reach, Damascus Gate,
and Bay of Souls. His story collection, Bear and His Daughter, was
a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and his memoir, Prime Green, was
published in 2006.
"No serious writer of this century has more thoroughly invaded and shaped the public imagination than Graham Greene." Time
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