The American Catholic author Julien Green (1900-1998) is admired by generations of readers for his novels, memoirs, plays dealing with his Southern family and especially a published diary in 19 volumes, kept from 1919 to 1998. A new edition of that diary may trouble some of Green’s fans.
A hallmark of Green’s achievement is his intense empathy for the vanquished of the world. He was born in Paris to American parents when France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 was still a living memory; Green was taught about his family’s roots in the American South before the Civil War.
