Graham Greene was born on 2 October 1904 in Berkhampsted, Hertfordshire, England, the fourth of six children.

After graduation, he worked briefly for the Nottingham Journal, but then moved to London, as a Sub Editor for The Times.

His first novel, "The Man Within,"" was published in 1929, to public and critical acclaim. A lucrative contract with Heinemann followed, enabling him to resign from The Times and devote more time to his novels.

During World War II, Greene worked "in a silly useless job", as he later said, for the Foreign Office in London. Greene left the Service in May 1944 and was commissioned to write a film script based on Vienna, a city then occupied by the US, Britain, France and the Soviet Union. The result was The Third Man; a film which won the first prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1949.

Asia stimulated "The Quiet American," which is about American involvement in Indochina. It was considered sympathetic to Communism in the Soviet Union and a play version of the novel was produced in Moscow. The 2002 film version was held back for nearly a year because of concerns that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States would turn off audiences from depictions of terrorist attacks and 1950s U.S. involvement in Indochina.

Greene died in Vevey, Switzerland, on 3 April 1991.