• The End of the Affair

  • By: Graham Greene
  • Narrated by: Colin Firth
  • Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (11,393 ratings)

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The End of the Affair  By  cover art

The End of the Affair

By: Graham Greene
Narrated by: Colin Firth
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Publisher's summary

Earphones Award Winner (AudioFile Magazine)

Audie Award Winner, Audiobook of the Year, 2013

Audie Award Nominee, Best Solo Narration, 2013

Academy Award-winning actor Colin Firth (The King’s Speech) won the Audie for Audiobook of the Year in 2013—for his first audio performance, The End of the Affair. The love affair at the center of this 1951 classic novel takes place in the bomb-strewn last days of World War II, and just after. Bendrix, a writer in war-torn London, has fallen in love with Sarah, the wife of an acquaintance. Though unhappily married, Sarah won’t leave her husband; she ends their affair and abruptly vanishes, reducing Bendrix's inner life to rubble. His investigation of Sarah’s disappearance reveals the role her newly-awakened Catholic faith played in her decision to leave, and other startling truths.

The End of the Affair mirrors Greene’s own relationship with a married woman, and positions religion as a pivotal element in both the inner turmoil and outer destruction occurring in his life at the time. Firth brilliantly conveys Greene’s characteristically bleak emotional terrain in an intimate, nuanced, and unhurried performance.

Explore more titles performed by some of the most celebrated actors in the business in Audible’s Star-Powered Listens collection.
©1951 Graham Greene (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Go Behind the Scenes with Colin Firth

An accomplished stage and screen actor embraces a new medium: audio performance.
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Publisher's summary

Earphones Award Winner (AudioFile Magazine)

Audie Award Winner, Audiobook of the Year, 2013

Audie Award Nominee, Best Solo Narration, 2013

Academy Award-winning actor Colin Firth (The King’s Speech) won the Audie for Audiobook of the Year in 2013—for his first audio performance, The End of the Affair. The love affair at the center of this 1951 classic novel takes place in the bomb-strewn last days of World War II, and just after. Bendrix, a writer in war-torn London, has fallen in love with Sarah, the wife of an acquaintance. Though unhappily married, Sarah won’t leave her husband; she ends their affair and abruptly vanishes, reducing Bendrix's inner life to rubble. His investigation of Sarah’s disappearance reveals the role her newly-awakened Catholic faith played in her decision to leave, and other startling truths.

The End of the Affair mirrors Greene’s own relationship with a married woman, and positions religion as a pivotal element in both the inner turmoil and outer destruction occurring in his life at the time. Firth brilliantly conveys Greene’s characteristically bleak emotional terrain in an intimate, nuanced, and unhurried performance.

Explore more titles performed by some of the most celebrated actors in the business in Audible’s Star-Powered Listens collection.
©1951 Graham Greene (P)2012 Audible, Inc.
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Our favorite moments from The End of the Affair

Jilted lover and oblivious husband at the pub.
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The first glimpse of Sarah.
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Is he loved? The dour Bendrix has doubts.
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The thrill is gone, or so Bendrix jealously fears.
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  • The End of the Affair
  • Jilted lover and oblivious husband at the pub.
  • The End of the Affair
  • The first glimpse of Sarah.
  • The End of the Affair
  • Is he loved? The dour Bendrix has doubts.
  • The End of the Affair
  • The thrill is gone, or so Bendrix jealously fears.

About the Performer

Colin Firth was heart-stoppingly perfect as Darcy in BBC’s Pride and Prejudice, won an Oscar for playing the tongue-tied king in The King’s Speech, and continued to gain fans with his roles in Bridget Jones’s Diary, A Single Man, Love Actually, and many more films. In addition to having a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Firth won Audiobook of the Year in 2013 for his narration of The End of the Affair.

About the Author

Graham Greene, widely recognized as one of the most important writers of the 20th century, was born in Hertfordshire, England, and studied history at Oxford. A restless spirit, he traveled the world before settling in London and starting to write novels, including The Heart of the Matter, The Quiet American, Our Man in Havana, and many more. Later recruited as a spy for his government, he based several of his novels in the shadowy world of double agents. But love and passion also caught his imagination, and he explored them from the perspective of an "agnostic Catholic" whose interest in Catholicism also played a big role in his work.

What listeners say about The End of the Affair

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Great

I war ready to quit Audible after 550 books, and finding most of the new literature since about 2010, shallow, often disgusting, and a waste of money. After listening to this book and the narration by Colin Firth, I am staying with Audible as long as I can find books of this quality!

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COLIN FIRTH: Please do more audiobooks!

The story is good, fine, interesting... but Colin Firth could make the phone book sound compelling. Seriously: he's up there with Juliet Stevenson, Jim Dale, and the like. Audible, entice him somehow; I would buy anything he read. Take my credits!

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You've seen the movie now listen to the book

Colin Firth's reading of this wonderful novel is magnificent. His textured interpretation brings the nuances of the book to life.

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Interesting Approach to Faith

Graham Greene's style is captivating and his exploration of the reluctance of humanity to turn to God, in spite of overwhelming signs and evidence, is quite believable. A very realistic, very human tale. Any believer might commiserate with the atheist protagonists as the doubts and troubles and emotions Greene portrays are so universal and so natural. A good read.

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Classic in English literature for provocative thinking

Once again Graham Greene shows is what good writing and storytelling is all about and with Colin Firth reading it it’s better than reading it yourself. The reading transported me into the mix of these very human complex lives struggling with life‘s continually unresolved issues brilliantly

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Atheists, be aware! Danger! Danger!

Usually it takes awhile to come upon a book to love. I have a shelf at home where I keep my beloved books apart from others. I will buy it now in print and read it to savor and to make sure I have not missed anything. I am amazed how the author turned the most trivial story of an affair into … I have to stop myself.
I do not dare to spoil it. The end is so unpredictable and for some: must be very uncomfortable. I could compare it only with the epilogue of Dostoyevsky’s “Demons”, that was not included into the original print, but became available in recent.

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Slow pace, but great book

Not everyone will like how slow the pace is or how little actually seems to happen in the novel, but the characters are interesting and realistic in their emotions and actions.

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  • JK
  • 07-11-20

Stunning

Although a slow start, the novel captures the intricacies of love and the belief in who we are and why we are. Quote, "where time came from he said it came from out of the future which didn't exist yet and into the present that had no duration and went into the past that ceased to exist." It is a beautifully written story of a strong, yet delicate aspect of human nature.

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Still Recovering

It will take some time to recover from the experience of listening to the stupendous Colin Firth read the brilliant End of the Affair. I’ve read some but clearly not enough Greene and this one left me breathless. Only a craft master such as Greene could take on conventional narrative, alternating flashback and theme as deftly as he did. His use of language is simply stunning. I cannot think of a better use of my Saturday and will certainly listen to again.

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This Shit Slaps!

I be blasting this shit while driving 80 in a school zone screaming "Yang Gang!" at all the kids about to go on holiday.

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