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Lead book review

The paradox of Graham Greene – searching for peace in the world’s warzones

Graham Greene was constantly searching for peace of mind along with escapist thrills, says Nicholas Shakespeare

5 September 2020

9:00 AM

5 September 2020

9:00 AM

Russian Roulette: The Life and Times of Graham Greene Richard Greene

Little, Brown, pp.592, 25

Joseph Conrad’s death made Graham Greene feel, at 19, sitting on a beach in Yorkshire, ‘as if there was a kind of “blank” in the whole of contemporary literature’. Greene’s own death in 1991, aged 87, had a similar effect on many younger writers, myself included.

For John le Carré, his most obvious successor, Greene had ‘carried the torch of English literature, almost alone’.

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