In December 1955, Graham Greene’s Vietnam-based novel The Quiet American was published in the UK followed by North America and worldwide at the start of 1956. Condemned by US critics at the time for its scathing critique of US foreign policy, especially Washington’s approach to Asia, the novel not only proved accurate in its warnings about the dangers of America’s crusading Cold War zeal but was unacannily (and tragically) prophetic as far as the future of Vietnam was concerned.
In December 2025, Greene Festival director Kevin Ruane celebrated The Quiet American’s birthday in an article in Jacobin magazine. The article can be read here: ‘The Quiet American captured the Hubris of American Empire’.
