Graham Greene's Journeys in Spain and Portugal

Abstract This book deals with Graham Greene’s travels around Spain and Portugal in the 1970s and 1980s in the company of a Spanish scholar and Catholic priest, Leopoldo Durán, and offers new angles on a decisive period in the life of a writer who continues to inspire and to fascinate. This detailed reconstruction of Greene’s visits to Spain between 1976 and 1989 has been put together from among specialized archives holding Greene’s and Duran’s diaries and personal papers. If their friendship is itself remarkable, a lively account of it provides numerous anecdotes, the emergence of charming and/or enigmatic characters, and several untold stories: the hilarious attempt by a Spanish nobleman to establish a Graham Greene Foundation; the possible motivations of Greene’s first visit to Spain related to his role as an informant for MI6; the mysterious visits to an old English lady located in Sintra; or the writer's attempts in the early 1980s to establish links with the emerging Spanish socialism following a modus operandi that had borne fruit in Panama, Chile, Nicaragua, or Cuba. The process of inspiration to write Monsignor Quixote (1982) comes to the foreground in the trips that took place between 1976 and 1982, while a later phase (1983–89) contemplates events related to the repercussions of this novel. Therefore, it can be affirmed that the present book provides essential information to understand the novel that would become Graham Greene’s own favourite among all his extensive production.