One of Greene’s most powerful novels, the book takes as its theme the era of religious suppression in Mexico during the early 1930’s. An unnamed Catholic priest, an alcoholic with a shameful past in search of either oblivion or redemption, travels through Mexico administering the rites of the church to the poor landless peasants, hunted by a remorseless police officer and always in fear of being betrayed by those he is attempting to help.
Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a reputation early in his lifetime as a major writer, both of serious Catholic novels, and of thrillers. He was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times. Through 67 years of writing, which included over 25 novels, he explored the conflicting moral and political issues of the modern world. *The Power and the Glory* won the 1941 Hawthornden Prize and *The Heart of the Matter* won the 1948 James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the Best of the James Tait Black. Greene was awarded the 1968 Shakespeare Prize and the 1981 Jerusalem Prize. Several of his stories have been filmed, some more than once, and he collaborated with filmmaker Carol Reed on *The Fallen Idol* (1948) and *The Third Man* (1949). He converted to Catholicism in 1926 after meeting his future wife, Vivien Dayrell-Browning. Later in life he took to calling himself a "Catholic agnostic".
Source: [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Greene)
