Skip to content

Our Man in Havana

Our Man in Havana

Literary FictionSpy
Pages
286
Published
1958
Language
English

Synopsis

When his daughter's expensive tastes demand more income, vacuum cleaner salesman Wormold accepts a mysterious offer to become a spy in Havana. He invents agents and files fake reports to earn his pay, but his fabricated intelligence soon begins to have alarming, real-world consequences. Wormold finds himself entangled in a dangerous game where his lies become truth, putting his life and those around him at risk.

Prose complexity
7/10

Vibe

FunnySatiricalTenseMysterious
Reluctant HeroUnreliable Narrator

Genres

Literary Fiction Spy Thriller Espionage History Humor

About the author

G
Graham Greene

Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English novelist, short-story writer, playwright and journalist, widely regarded as one of the major British writers of the twentieth century. Born in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, and educated at Balliol College, Oxford, he converted to Roman Catholicism in 1926 and worked as a copy editor on The Times before becoming film critic and literary editor of The Spectator. During the Second World War he served with the Foreign Office in Freetow...

Characters

WormoldProtagonist
All characters in Our Man in Havana

Frequently asked questions

  • Is Our Man in Havana a standalone novel?

    This novel functions as a complete story within itself, not requiring any prior reading of Graham Greene's other works to be fully understood or enjoyed.

  • Is there a film adaptation of Our Man in Havana?

    A film adaptation of Our Man in Havana was released in 1959, directed by Carol Reed and starring Alec Guinness. Graham Greene himself wrote the screenplay for the movie.

  • What inspired Graham Greene to write Our Man in Havana?

    Graham Greene drew inspiration for this novel from his own experiences working for MI6 in Portugal during World War II, where he observed agents fabricating intelligence reports.