Greene the 20th century writer
 Graham Greene wrote some of the most commanding English novels of the 20th century - "The Power and the Glory," "The Heart of the Matter," "The End of the Affair" and "The Quiet American" - and some of the slickest commercial thrillers. His political credo united him with victims and underdogs everywhere. Yet he saw fit to praise tyrannical regimes in the Soviet Union and Cuba.
As a schoolboy in Berkhamsted, England, Greene had to balance the demands of his classmates against those of his father, the headmaster. Continually subjected to the other boysī taunts, he tutored himself in the ways of duplicity, in the rival claims of trust and betrayal. During World War II, Greene served as a British spy under Kim Philby, later unmasked as a double agent for the Soviets during the Cold War. Despite his friendīs betrayal of their country, Greene refused to breakoff their friendship. Greene was also a notorious womanizer, whose affairs and brothel visits where ever he travel to. Throughout Greeneīs life and fiction, the theme of divided loyalties is a constant. And no wonder. The seeds were planted early.
On the anniversary of his birth, October 1904, the book world has been busy issuing new editions of his work, pondering his troubled personality and weighing his literary reputation.
 Just how good a writer was Greene, who died in 1991, and what is his enduring legacy? Greene was extraordinarily prolific. Aside from serious novels, he wrote thrillers he called "entertainments," screenplays, plays, film criticism, essays, travel books, memoirs, even childrenīs books. In so vast a body of work, quality is bound to vary. Still, the judgment that Greene was a major figure in 20th century English literature seems largely beyond dispute. David Lodge, the English novelist and critic who has written an analysis of Greeneīs work, believes his achievement is immense: He adapted the structure of adventure fiction, and other popular fictional genres, like the crime novel, to new and more serious literary purposes, especially in novels that dealt with specifically Catholic characters and themes.... He was a master of English prose, with a wonderful feeling for prose rhythm, and a fertile inventor of vivid metaphors and similes." The Nobel Prize eluded Greene, Lodge believes, only because of prejudices against authors so popular. By the late ī40s, his books began appearing regularly on bestseller lists.
A younger generation may have been introduced to Greene in recent years by high profile films based on his books. But moviegoers who thrilled to Michael Caineīs performance as a world-weary journalist in "The Quiet American" (2002) or Julianne Mooreīs as a guilt-ridden adulterous wife in "The End of the Affair" (1999) donīt know the half of it.
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