Our Man in Havana (1958) is a novel set in Cuba by the English author Graham Greene. Greene uses the novel to mock intelligence services, especially the British MI6, and their willingness to believe reports from their local informants.

The novel was adapted into a film of the same name in 1959, directed by Carol Reed and starring Alec Guinness. In 1963, it was adapted into an opera by Malcolm Williamson to a libretto by Sidney Gilliat, who had worked on the film. In 2007, it was adapted into a play by Clive Francis, which has toured the UK several times and been performed in various parts of the world.

Background

Greene joined MI6 in August 1941. In London, Greene had been appointed to the subsection dealing with counter-espionage in the Iberian Peninsula, where he had learnt about German agents in Portugal relaying fictitious reports to their superiors, which garnered them expenses and bonuses to add to their basic salary.

One of the agents was "Garbo", a Spanish double agent in Lisbon, who gave his German handlers disinformation, by pretending to control a ring of agents all over England. In fact, he invented armed forces movements and operations from maps, guides and standard military references. Garbo was the main inspiration for Wormold, the protagonist of Our Man in Havana.

Remembering the German agents in Portugal, Greene wrote the first version of the story in 1946, as an outline for a film script, with the story set in Estonia in 1938. The film was never made, and Greene soon realised that Havana, which he had visited several times in the early 1950s, would be a much better setting, with the absurdities of the Cold War being more appropriate for a comedy.</blockquote>

Greene returned to Havana between 1963 and 1966.

References

  • Savidge Reads (24 October 2010): Our Man in Havana – Graham Greene – Review by Simon Savidge. Retrieved 2011-08-31
  • A Modest Construct (13 February 2011): Our Man in Havana – a review. Retrieved 2011-08-31