The Director of the Graham Greene International Festival talks all things Graham Greene on Spybrary!
The novelist Graham Greene ranks at number 6 on Tim Shipman's infamous Best Spy Writers list — and yet, quite frankly, we haven't given him enough airtime on the Spybrary podcast. He comes up constantly in discussions on the Spybrary community, so it was high time we put that right. Enter Professor Kevin Ruane, Greene scholar and Director of the Graham Greene International Festival, who joins guest host Matt Hurst to take us deep into Graham Greene's secret spy life.
This is the first of what we hope will be many episodes exploring the great spy novelists — so watch this space, and make sure you're subscribed to the Spybrary Podcast so you don't miss what's coming next.
Graham Greene didn't just write about spies — he was a spy and espionage was the family business.
In this Spybrary debriefing, guest host Matt Hurst sits down with Professor Kevin Ruane Professor of Modern History, Greene scholar, and Director of the Graham Greene International Festival for a deep dive into Greene's double life as novelist and intelligence man. Kevin shares revelations from the Graham Greene archives that will surprise even seasoned Greene readers.
In this episode:
- The Greene family spy business. Graham Greene's uncle founded the Naval Intelligence Department. His sister Elizabeth was in SIS — and recruited Graham herself. His brother Hugh (later Director General of the BBC) ran black ops in Malaya. And brother Herbert, the black sheep, managed to spy for the Americans, the Japanese and the British in the 1930s — badly.
- Why did Graham Greene walk out of SIS the day before D-Day? Of all the moments to quit the day job. Kevin explores the theory that Greene had rumbled his boss and drinking companion Kim Philby — and ducked out rather than face the ultimate choice between friend and country.
- “Recreational espionage.” Kevin's research into Graham Greene's letters reveals a pattern: for decades after the war, whenever Graham Greene travelled to Vienna, Poland, Cuba or Vietnam, he'd first have dinner with “my Foreign Office chap” or “the old firm.” A little light spying on the side, airfare paid — the perfect arrangement for a man who couldn't stand still.
- The Quiet American — the novel that predicted the Vietnam War. How Graham Greene's four visits to Indochina produced a story of American blind idealism run amok, ten years before it happened — and why journalists like David Halberstam, Neil Sheehan and John Pilger carried it in their knapsacks to make sense of the war.
- Was Greene himself spying in Vietnam? Kevin makes the case that Greene and his SIS friend Trevor Wilson were cultivating Catholic bishops in the north as a “third force” — before the Americans even started looking for one.
- The film Greene called “a travesty.” The 1958 Quiet American reversed the entire premise of his novel into Cold War propaganda — and Greene never stopped complaining. Plus: the remake that never was, and Greene's fawning letter to the actor he considered perfect for Thomas Fowler. (Hint: it wasn't Michael Caine.)
- Greene vs le Carré. Greene's cover endorsement made John le Carré‘s name. Then le Carré presumed a “friendship” — and Greene's savage reply is in the letters: “You're not my friend.”
- Why Greene would love Mick Herron's Slow Horses. A Greene expert makes the case that Jackson Lamb is a “whisky nun priest” straight out of Greeneland.
About the Graham Greene International Festival
Run by the Graham Greene Birthplace Trust, the festival takes place 24–27 September in Berkhamsted, UK — Greene's birthplace, just 30 minutes by train from London Euston. This year's spy-themed highlights include Ben Brown's play A Splinter of Ice (Greene meets Philby in Moscow, with a playwright Q&A), Robert Verkaik on his new book The Writer and the Traitor, and le Carré biographer Adam Sisman on Greene and le Carré.
Tickets and programme: grahamgreenebt.org • Instagram @GrahamGreeneBT
Follow our guest host: Matt Hurst Official Website
Featured Guest
Professor Kevin Ruane
Links
The Graham Greene International Festival
Professor Kevin Ruane
Spybrary Guide to the Spy Novels of Graham Greene
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The Top 125 Spy Authors Ranked and Rated by Tim Shipman
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Did you know that one of the UK's top journalists Tim Shipman also has a passion for espionage novels? And that he has meticulously curated a compendium of his favorite 125 spy authors for the Spybrary Podcast and Community, all carefully ranked with suggestions on which book to start with from each spy author.
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