Description:
Graham Greene liked to set his novels in lost and dangerous countries in darker moments in history: Haiti under President-for-Life "Papa Doc" Duvalier; Cuba on the eve of revolution; Mexico during a decade of religious persecution; Vietnam as it careened towards war. For British journalist Julia Llewellyn Smith, the places Greene chose were as irresistible as his writing, so she set out to discover whether "Greeneland" still existed and how greatly it had changed in the intervening years. After a slow beginning in Brighton, England, Llewellyn Smith reveals herself to be as bold a traveler as Greene. She meets clandestinely with a priest in Chiapas, Mexico who tells her the paramilitaries "murder anyone they suspect of being a Zapatista and they rape their wives. They shoot at priests who try to help." In Mexico, and elsewhere, Llewellyn Smith finds that "nothing has changed in Greeneland, yet so much has happened." Vietnam may be communist, but it has "one hundred percent capitalist freedom" and is very much like pre-war Vietnam with its colonial cities, dense jungles, gleaming rice paddies, and the brothels and opium dens Greene enjoyed. Cuba is now almost as fashionable for tourists as it was in 1955, while Haiti is still gripped by fear, frustration, and poverty despite having a democratically elected president. Like Greene, Llewellyn Smith rarely stays in one place very long, which occasionally makes her as reductive as Greene in his worst moments. Still, she falls in love with all the same places he did, and her lively dispatches provide illuminating glimpses into some fascinating places. --Lesley Reed
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