Book description
A young boy, Victor, is collected from school by a stranger in a bowler
hat - the stranger says he has won Victor in a game of backgammon with
Victor's father. The stranger, known as the Captain, takes Victor to
live with the sweet but withdrawn Lisa, where he serves as her conduit
to the outside world. From mysterious beginnings, Graham Greene's final
novel becomes a twisting thriller of smuggling, jewel theft and
international espionage which culminates in a dramatic showdown in
Panama.
Graham Greene was born in 1904. On coming down from Balliol College,
Oxford, he worked for four years as sub-editor on The Times. He
established his reputation with his fourth novel, Stamboul
Train. In 1935 he made a journey across Liberia, described in
Journey Without Maps, and on his return was appointed film
critic of the Spectator. In 1926 he had been received into the
Roman Catholic Church and visited Mexico in 1938 to report on the
religious persecution there. As a result he wrote The Lawless
Roads and, later, his famous novel The Power and the Glory.
Brighton Rock was published in 1938 and in 1940 he became
literary editor of the Spectator. The next year he undertook
work for the Foreign Office and was stationed in Sierra Leone from
1941 to 1943. This later produced the novel The Heart of the
Matter, set in West Africa.
As well as his many novels, Graham Greene wrote several collections
of short stories, four travel books, six plays, three books of
autobiography - A Sort of Life, Ways of Escape and A
World of My Own (published posthumously) - two of biography and
four books for children. He also contributed hundreds of essays, and
film and book reviews, some of which appear in the collections
Reflections and Mornings in the Dark. Many of his novels
and short stories have been filmed and The Third Man was
written as a film treatment. Graham Greene was a member of the Order
of Merit and a Companion of Honour. He died in April 1991.
