Talk:Graham Greene

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A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on April 3, 2017 and April 3, 2021.

Remove unattributed quote

I tried to locate the source of the sentence "Greene was said [by whom?] to have a fascination with strong leaders, which may have accounted for his interest in Castro, whom he later met." I could not find any definitive proof that Greene had this opinion. In fact most statements about him suggest he had a very complex and nuanced point of view of most political situations. Unless this quote can be found I suggest the sentence be removed. The paragraph reads fine without this sentence. Gkahn (talk) 21:13, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I've read this in the Oxford DNB entry on Greene (apologies for the long quotation): "Greene visited Latin America often, but never bothered to learn Spanish and spent much of his time cultivating the goodwill of such undemocratic regimes as Fidel Castro's in Cuba and General Omar Torrijos's in Panama. In the 1970s and 1980s he visited Panama frequently and made so many friends among the members of Torrijos's military entourage that the general once paid for his flight home on Concorde. He had a personal obsession with Torrijos, as is clear in his non-fiction work Getting to Know the General (1985). Fifty years earlier, when he was fascinated by the Carlist wars, he developed a special liking for the doomed figure of a Spanish general called Torrijos. He thought fate had brought him together with Panama's leader of the same name."

So maybe this could be cited as backup for the "fascination with strong leaders" (Castro and others), though "which may have accounted for his interest" sounds a bit like original research. We could reword it, though you're right that the paragraph would survive without it. Per$1$tenceofv1$1on (talk) 22:00, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

On the subject of fascination for dictators, Norman Sherry's obituary of Greene for The Independent describes his criticism of Papa Doc Duvalier, then adds, "but he was often blind to the excesses of other leaders, usually left-wing, with whom he was friendly, such as Torrijos of Panama, Castro of Cuba, and Ortega of Nicaragua". Per$1$tenceofv1$1on (talk) 22:10, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Righto, so I revised this sentence and added the two citations above. At least now a couple of Greene's biographers are identified as people who have made the allegation. Per$1$tenceofv1$1on (talk) 20:06, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Marriage

Currently the article says he met Vivien Dayrell-Browning in Nottingham, but his ODNB entry and the obituary in The Daily Telegraph say they met in Oxford when he was an undergrad. Per$1$tenceofv1$1on (talk) 23:19, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sherry's biography says Oxford as well. I've amended this.Per$1$tenceofv1$1on (talk)

Jerusalem Prize

Currently the article mentions twice that he won this (not including the lede), in "Final Years" and "Legacy". I've just added a citation for both, but I'm not sure it's necessary to state this twice. Should one of these be removed? Per$1$tenceofv1$1on (talk) 02:56, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Works Cited" and "Further Reading"

Currently there are two lists of sources at the end of this article. As far as I'm aware, there's nothing in the guidelines against articles having lists of further reading, but some of the sources in this second list are actually cited in the article as it currently stands. Also, full details for several sources (Brian Diemert's 1996 monograph) appear several times, which doesn't make the article look very professional. I'd like to reformat these lists so nothing's duplicated, and I'm hoping this isn't a particularly controversial decision. Per$1$tenceofv1$1on (talk) 18:06, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Short Description

Currently this calls Greene a writer and literary critic, but the lede more accurately calls him a writer and journalist. Would editors be OK if we changed this? Per$1$tenceofv1$1on (talk) 12:13, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]