Reading Order
The ComediansGraham Greene The Comedians Reading Order
Graham Greene's The Comedians (1966) is his most politically engaged novel — the story of Brown, the owner of a failing hotel in Duvalier's Haiti, who becomes reluctantly involved with a small group of opponents to the Tonton Macoute. The novel is organized around the distinction between those who are committed (who believe in something, even if that belief destroys them) and those who are merely comedians (who play roles without genuine conviction). Written in the shadow of Duvalier's terror, The Comedians is Greene's most direct engagement with the relationship between political violence and individual moral choice.
Where to start
The Quiet American
Complete The Comedians Book List
- 1Buy
The Quiet American
Graham Greene·1955·The essential companion — Greene's most politically serious novel; the story of Pyle and Fowler in Saigon is the direct predecessor to The Comedians in its concern with what political commitment costs the people who cannot quite achieve it. - 2Buy
The Comedians
Graham Greene·1966·The novel itself — Brown, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Major Jones, and the Tonton Macoute in Duvalier's Haiti. - 3Buy
The Confidential Agent
Graham Greene·1939·The companion in Greene's political fiction — D.'s reluctant Spanish republican agency; both are organized around a man who becomes reluctantly involved in political violence without being committed to the cause in any ideological sense. - 4Buy
The Kingdom of This World
Alejo Carpentier·1949·Carpentier's novel about the Haitian Revolution — the essential companion from the Caribbean literary tradition; where Greene's Haiti is the nightmare of Duvalier's dictatorship in the 1960s, Carpentier's Haiti is the nightmare of the first revolution that ended in its own terror; together they form a complete portrait of Haitian history as a cycle of liberation and violence. - 5Buy
In the Time of the Butterflies
Julia Alvarez·1994·Alvarez's novel about the Mirabal sisters and their resistance to Trujillo's dictatorship in the Dominican Republic — the most celebrated fiction about Caribbean political terror in the neighboring country to Haiti; the comparison with The Comedians shows how two very different narrative methods engage with the same historical reality of US-backed Caribbean dictatorships. - 6Buy
The Autumn of the Patriarch
Gabriel García Márquez·1975·García Márquez's novel about a Caribbean dictator who has ruled for so long that no one can remember the beginning of his reign — the essential Latin American parallel to The Comedians's portrait of Duvalier's Haiti; both engage with the structure of Caribbean dictatorship, but where Greene is realistic and satirical, García Márquez is mythological. - 7Buy
The Human Factor
Graham Greene·1978·The companion in Greene's late political fiction — Maurice Castle's double life in Cold War South Africa; the most direct development of The Comedians's concerns about political commitment and individual loyalty in a context of political violence.
The Comedians — Frequently Asked Questions
What is The Comedians about?
The Comedians (1966) is set in Duvalier's Haiti and follows Brown, the owner of a failing hotel, who becomes involved with a small group of opponents to the Tonton Macoute — Duvalier's feared paramilitary force. The novel is organized around the distinction between those who are committed (who believe in something) and those who are 'comedians' — people who play roles without genuine conviction.
Was Graham Greene banned from Haiti for The Comedians?
François Duvalier ('Papa Doc') considered The Comedians an attack on his regime and published a propaganda pamphlet denouncing Greene as an 'agent of the CIA' and 'a liar.' Greene was effectively banned from Haiti, and the Haitian government pressured publishers to refuse the novel. Greene wore the denunciation as a badge of honor.
What does Greene mean by 'comedians' in The Comedians?
Greene uses 'comedian' in the sense of a person who plays a role without genuine belief — an actor in the theater of life rather than a committed participant. The committed characters in the novel (those who believe in something and are willing to die for it) are contrasted with the comedians (those who drift through life playing whatever role the situation requires). Greene's question is whether the comedian can ever become committed — and at what cost.
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