Green was born in
London on 22 December 1924. He went to school at
Charterhouse. During
World War II, he served with the
Royal Air Force in
Burma. In Firpo's Bar in
Calcutta, he met and became friendly with future novelist,
Paul Scott, who later used elements of Green's character for the figure of Sergeant Guy Perron in
The Raj Quartet. After the war, Green attended
Trinity College, Cambridge, where he achieved a Double First in Classics, winning the Craven Scholarship and Studentship in 1950. He subsequently wrote
historical novels and worked as a
journalist, in the capacity of fiction critic for the
Daily Telegraph (1953–63), book columnist for the
Yorkshire Post (1961–62), television critic for
The Listener (1962–1963), film critic for ''
John O'London's'' (1961–1963), as well as contributing to other journals. Green was a regular contributor to the
New York Review of Books. At the time of his death, Green was working with Glenn Storey on a new translation of the works of
Herodotus with full commentaries. That work is expected to be published in 2025. ==Personal life and death==