Graham Greene, Our Man in Havana

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British novelist Graham Greene created a group of thrillers, works he termed “entertainments”, many of which were as deliberative as his serious Catholic novels. The most sardonic of Greene’s entertainments is

Our Man in Havana

(1958), a black comedy set in pre-Castro Cuba. Greene based this novel, and others such as

The Third Man

(1949) and

The Human Factor

(1978), largely on his experience in the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6, the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom. Recruited into MI6 in 1941, Greene worked for—and developed a special relationship with—the notorious double agent Harold “Kim” Philby who defected to the Soviet Union in 1963. Greene officially resigned from MI6 in 1944 but, perhaps, continued his friendship with…

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Citation: Beene, LynnDianne. "Our Man in Havana". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 31 January 2022 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=13310, accessed 27 December 2024.]

13310 Our Man in Havana 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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