Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Sample
  • The Power and the Glory

  • By: Graham Greene
  • Narrated by: Andrew Sachs
  • Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (464 ratings)

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

The Power and the Glory

By: Graham Greene
Narrated by: Andrew Sachs
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
activate_samplebutton_t1

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Heart of the Matter cover art
The Human Factor cover art
The Phantom Rickshaw cover art
The Captain and the Enemy cover art
The Cross on the Drum cover art
The Third Man (Dramatized) cover art
The Fixer cover art
The Road cover art
The Diary of a Country Priest cover art
A Tale of Two Cities cover art
Great Expectations cover art
A Prayer for Owen Meany cover art
The Sparrow cover art
The Black Obelisk cover art
The Power of One cover art
For Whom the Bell Tolls cover art

Summary

In a poor Mexican state in the 1930s, the Red Shirts have viciously persecuted the clergy and murdered many priests. Yet one remains - the ‘whisky priest’ who believes he's lost his soul. On the run and with the police closing in, his routes of escape are being shut off, his chances getting fewer. But compassion and humanity force him along the road to his destiny…

Andrew Sachs reads Graham Greene’s powerful novel about a worldly Roman Catholic priest and his quest for penitence and dignity.

©1940 Graham Greene (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

What listeners say about The Power and the Glory

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    243
  • 4 Stars
    127
  • 3 Stars
    70
  • 2 Stars
    19
  • 1 Stars
    5
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    279
  • 4 Stars
    86
  • 3 Stars
    37
  • 2 Stars
    5
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    226
  • 4 Stars
    96
  • 3 Stars
    63
  • 2 Stars
    15
  • 1 Stars
    6

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

A difficult one

This is one of GGs more difficult books. Although excellently written as usual, the subject was one of the hardest to listen to and the author did not hold back. The feelings of desperation and helplessness of practically all the characters came through vividly in this excellent narration. Advice: don’t read or listen to this book if you are in an unhappy frame of mind…

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

An oddly inspiring story about human frailty

A flawed priest in 1930s Mexico embodies the average Catholic in any era. At once tragic, hopeless and hopeful. This is a powerful story about the misery and majesty of the human condition. A must-listen.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Moving, sad and realistic

With what is happening in the U.K. currently (August 2024) I initially found it hard to read about a Mexican state (Tabasco) suffering under a totalitarian Marxist/Stalinist regime during the time of the Mexican Revolution. A regime that had reified the idea of thought crimes as real crimes (punishable by death); banned alcohol; criminalised religious practice; hunted down and executed priests as traitors; and, thrown an already poor state into abject poverty and desolation (shades of 21st century Venezuela). The regime also (contrary to socialist principles?) treated native peoples as sub-human. All of these things and more are seen in this rather moving novel about a ‘whiskey priest’ attempting to stay alive by escaping Tabasco. Along the way, he meets a highly believable, rag-tag, and not always nice bunch of characters. Yes, the novel can be grim at times, but that’s because life and death were grim during this terrible time in Mexico’s troubled history.
Graham Greene - a devout Catholic - was quite brave to write about the revolution and its impacts on ordinary people, as it would have been easy to get it wrong. But he doesn’t get it wrong. Far from it. For when all is said and done, we are all human. Yes, some of the monsters running these countries and states appear to be inhuman and have no redeeming features (eg Stalin in the USSR, Canabal in Tabasco) but everyone else is just trying to survive. And that is the most important point I think is being made in Greene’s this ‘masterpiece’ (as John Updike described it).
The narration is superb. I think Graham Greene would have approved.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Thought provoking

I did this book at school and it remained with me in the back of my mind. The complexity of the main character was sore on my head, as it twists and turns depending on when you look. Well narrated

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

An excellent performance of this superb book

The performance was fantastic, with all voices and accents suitable. The Book of course is superb, depending how you like your literature!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Gripping and atmospheric

Andrew Sachs reads this story of a hunted, and haunted, flawed priest perfectly. The evocation of the various characters that the priest meets in his wanderings is greatly enhanced by Sach's rendition of the text. Perhaps Greene's best Catholic novel, it is a laying bare of the priest's tormented guilt, fear and weakness as he seeks to avoid martyrdom at the hands of a virulently anti-religious South American revolutionary state.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Thought Provoking

This novel took me a while to get into but I’m very glad to have carried on with it.
One of those books that allows you to become a traveler in another era and country.
Fabulous narration!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant book Graham Greene at his best.

This is such a brilliant book; revolution, love, betrayal and faith. Perfect narration Andrew Sachs

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Engaging and fabulously read

the story has a slow pace and describes an important time in the history of Mexico through the journey of a priest. Fantastically well read which brings it alive as sometimes the pace is too slow.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

story feels dated

The book is undoubtedly well written, but the story feels somewhat dated now, narration brilliant

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!