LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Graham Greene: Lakota Vietnam
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Greene had one of the most recognizable writing styles of twentieth-century English authors. His novels are written in a lean, realistic style with clear, exciting plots (avoiding modernist experiments, which might partially account for his popularity) and often utilising a cinematic visual sense in his descriptions. Yet he ... concentrated on portraying the internal life of his characters, their mental, emotional and spiritual depths. They are usually deeply troubled by internal struggles, world-weariness and cynicism and living in seedy, sordid or rootless circumstances. Greene tended to set his novels in poor, hot, dusty or tropical backwaters in countries such as Mexico, West Africa, Vietnam, Haiti or Argentina. This has led to the coining of the expression "Greeneland" to describe such settings.
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"Given the intervening twenty years of war and twenty more of political isolation, it would come as no surprise to find that none of Greene's old haunts in Vietnam are still standing. But not only are they still there, many of them have been restored to better than mint condition. Indeed, Vietnam today is full of astonishing contrasts to the opium-soaked, decadent world of Greene's novel, and the irony of some of these contrasts can only be deliberate."
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Events took another upward turn in 1989 when Greene played a cameo role as Jimmy, an emotionally disturbed Lakota Vietnam veteran, in PowWow Highway. That same year he received the Dora Mavor Moore Award of Toronto for Best Actor in his role as Pierre St. Pierre in Cree author Tomson Highway's play Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing.
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Many other buildings that Greene mentions are ... still standing and easy to find. The central post office, the cathedral, the Banque Indo Chine (now the National Bank of Vietnam) and more are all still in beautiful condition and within walking distance of the Dong Khoi, the Rue Catinat.
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The frenetic globetrotting continued until Greene was physically unable to do so in his later years. He sought out the world's "trouble spots": Vietnam during the Indochina War, Kenya during the Mau Mau outbreak, Stalinist Poland, Castro's Cuba, and Duvalier's Haiti among others.
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