Book summary

This novel of politics and espionage, set in the Haiti of "Papa Doc" Duvalier., describes the course of events that brings together three men who came to the island for very different reasons: Smith, an American idealist and crank who plans to establish a vegetarian commune for the Haitian poor; Brown, an Englishman who runs a cheap hotel and is involved with the wife of a South American diplomat; and Jones, an international gunrunner doing business with the Duvalier regime. Greene, who visited Haiti several times, was proud of the fact that Duvalier read his book and loathed it, saying it was "pas bien écrit." THE COMEDIANS was made into a 1967 film starring Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Alec Guinness, and Peter Ustinov.

Media reviews

"This new novel, [Greene's] tenth, bears no trace of slackening or diminution, it is not an old hand's brewing up--though the hand admittedly is very cunning--the mixture as before; it is instead a work of strength and freshness, and in its core there lies the steel coil of compulsion....The book is rich in incident and situations, deceptively seamless, switches from glimpse to briefer glimpse, revelation to set scene....Read in cold blood, out of immediate reach of violence, the message appears one of ultimate resignation, perhaps despair....'The Comedians' is a fine and important novel, and a very moving one."