Just as a story, The Comedians seems very original to me, (just read that description of the voodoo ritual), and the characterisation is memorable. His writing has an unmistakable tone of its own, clear, elegant and with his own individual sense of irony. Greene is both a great writer and a great novelist. You might have thought that they had suffered enough by then, and probably no historical account can depict the thick spiritual darkness, felt over all the land, in the way Graham Greene does in this extraordinary novel.

If prayers do any good we can try those, but as a mark of respect for a people whose suffering is past comprehension, I suppose that most of us, apart from thanking any gods there may be for our own escape, can at least gain a little more understanding of how it was for Haitians before this new disaster struck. From a horrified onlooker far from the scene the only help is any money one can afford. In the nature of the case there can't be many more such miracles, and the task of uncovering the dead is not the first priority, but it is still there waiting to be tackled and it looks as if it may need supernatural intervention. Now in the unspeakable acreage of death and devastation that is Haiti another buried survivor has miraculously been found more than two weeks after the earthquake. Where are the zombies when we need them? In voodoo belief they worked at night in the cemeteries. To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy Notice. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie Preferences, as described in the Cookie Notice. Click ‘Customise Cookies’ to decline these cookies, make more detailed choices, or learn more. Third parties use cookies for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalised ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. This includes using first- and third-party cookies, which store or access standard device information such as a unique identifier. If you agree, we’ll also use cookies to complement your shopping experience across the Amazon stores as described in our Cookie Notice. We also use these cookies to understand how customers use our services (for example, by measuring site visits) so we can make improvements.

We use cookies and similar tools that are necessary to enable you to make purchases, to enhance your shopping experiences and to provide our services, as detailed in our Cookie Notice.

The comedians by graham greene