One hundred years ago a writer was born who captured the essence of the 20th Century like no other: Graham Greene.
To mark this, literary publishing house Vintage is reissuing eight titles with new introductions by contemporary authors such as JM Coetzee and Zadie Smith.
Three men meet on a ship bound for Haiti, a world in the grip of the corrupt 'Papa Doc' and the Tontons Macoute, his sinister secret police. Brown the hotelier, Smith the innocent American and Jones the confidence man - these are the 'comedians' of Graham Greene's title. Hiding behind their actors' masks, they hesitate on the edge of life. And, to begin with, they are men afraid of love, afraid of pain, afraid of fear itself...
Graham Greene was born in 1904. He was a member of the Order of Merit and a Companion of Honour. Graham Greene died in April 1991. Among the many people who paid tribute to him on his death was Kingsley Amis: 'He will be missed all over the world. Until today, he was our greatest living novelist.'
