John Le Carré
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David John Moore Cornwell (19 October 193112 December 2020), better known by his pen name John le Carré ( ), was a British author, best known for his espionage novels, many of which were successfully adapted for film or television. A "sophisticated, morally ambiguous writer", he is considered one of the greatest novelists of the postwar era. During the 1950s and 1960s, he worked for both the Security Service (
MI5 MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), officially the Security Service, is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Gov ...
) and the Secret Intelligence Service (
MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
). Near the end of his life, le Carré became an Irish citizen. Le Carré's third novel, ''
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold ''The Spy Who Came in from the Cold'' is a 1963 Cold War spy fiction, spy novel by the British author John le Carré. It depicts Alec Leamas, a United Kingdom, British intelligence officer, being sent to East Germany as a faux Defection, defect ...
'' (1963), became an international best-seller, was adapted as an award-winning film, and remains one of his best-known works. This success allowed him to leave MI6 to become a full-time author. His other novels that have been adapted for film or television include '' The Looking Glass War'' (1965), '' Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'' (1974), '' Smiley's People'' (1979), '' The Little Drummer Girl'' (1983), '' The Russia House'' (1989), '' The Night Manager'' (1993), '' The Tailor of Panama'' (1996), '' The Constant Gardener'' (2001), '' A Most Wanted Man'' (2008) and '' Our Kind of Traitor'' (2010). In 2008, ''
The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...
'' named le Carré one of the "50 greatest British writers since 1945". Philip Roth said that '' A Perfect Spy'' (1986) was "the best English novel since the war".


Early life and education

David John Moore Cornwell was born on 19 October 1931 in
Poole Poole () is a coastal town and seaport on the south coast of England in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole unitary authority area in Dorset, England. The town is east of Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester and adjoins Bournemouth to the east ...
, Dorset, England, son of Ronald Thomas Archibald (Ronnie) Cornwell (1905–1975), and Olive Moore Cornwell (née Glassey, 1906–1989). His older brother, Tony (1929–2017), was an advertising executive and county cricketer (for Dorset), who later lived in the United States. His younger half-sister was the actress
Charlotte Cornwell Charlotte Cornwell (26 April 1949 – 16 January 2021) was an English actress, singer, and a teacher of acting on the faculty at the University of Southern California (2003–2012). Cornwell began her career as an actress, making her debut for ...
(1949–2021), and his younger half-brother, Rupert Cornwell (1946–2017), was a former Washington bureau chief for ''
The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
''. Cornwell had little early memory of his mother, who had left their family home when he was five years old. His maternal uncle was Liberal MP Alec Glassey. When Cornwell was 21 years old, Glassey gave him the address in Ipswich where his mother was living; mother and son reunited at Ipswich railway station, at her written invitation, following Cornwell's initial letter of reconciliation. Cornwell's father — who escaped from his "orthodox but repressive upbringing" as son of "a respectable nonconformist bricklayer who became a house builder and mayor of Poole" — had been jailed for
insurance fraud Insurance fraud is any intentional act committed to deceive or mislead an insurance company during the application or claims process, or the wrongful denial of a legitimate claim by an insurance company. It occurs when a claimant knowingly attem ...
and was a known associate of the
Kray twins Ronald Kray (24 October 193320 March 1995) and Reginald Kray (24 October 19331 October 2000) were English gangsters or organised crime figures and identical twin brothers from Haggerston who were prominent from the late 1950s until their arres ...
. The family was continually in debt. The father–son relationship has been described as "difficult". ''The Guardian'' reported that Le Carré recalled that he had been "beaten up by his father and grew up mostly starved of affection after his mother abandoned him at the age of five". Rick Pym, a scheming con man and the father of '' A Perfect Spy'' protagonist Magnus Pym, was based on Ronnie. When his father died in 1975, Cornwell paid for a memorial funeral service but did not attend, a plot point repeated in ''A Perfect Spy''. Cornwell's schooling began at St Andrew's Preparatory School, near
Pangbourne Pangbourne is a village and civil parish on the River Thames in the West Berkshire unitary area of the county of Berkshire, England. Pangbourne has shops, churches, schools and a village hall. Outside its nucleated village, grouped developed are ...
, Berkshire, and continued at
Sherborne School Sherborne School is a full-boarding school for boys aged 13 to 18 located beside Sherborne Abbey in the Dorset town of Sherborne. The school has been in continuous operation on the same site for over 1,300 years. It was founded in 705 AD by Ald ...
. He grew unhappy with the typically harsh English public school regime of the time and disliked his disciplinarian housemaster. He left Sherborne early to study foreign languages at the
University of Bern The University of Bern (, , ) is a public university, public research university in the Switzerland, Swiss capital of Bern. It was founded in 1834. It is regulated and financed by the canton of Bern. It is a comprehensive university offering a br ...
from 1948 to 1949. In 1950, he was called up for
National Service National service is a system of compulsory or voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act ...
and served in the Intelligence Corps of the
British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...
garrisoned in
Allied-occupied Austria Austria was occupied by the Allies of World War II, Allies and declared independence from Nazi Germany on 27 April 1945 (confirmed by the Berlin Declaration (1945), Berlin Declaration for Germany on 5 June 1945), as a result of the Vienna offen ...
, working as a German language interrogator of people who had crossed the
Iron Curtain The Iron Curtain was the political and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. On the east side of the Iron Curtain were countries connected to the So ...
to the West. In 1952, he returned to England to study at
Lincoln College, Oxford Lincoln College (formally, The College of the Blessed Mary and All Saints, Lincoln) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Lincoln was founded in 1427 by Richard Flemin ...
, where he worked covertly for the Security Service,
MI5 MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), officially the Security Service, is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Gov ...
, spying on
far-left Far-left politics, also known as extreme left politics or left-wing extremism, are politics further to the left on the left–right political spectrum than the standard political left. The term does not have a single, coherent definition; some ...
groups for information about possible Soviet agents. During his studies, he was a member of The Gridiron Club and a college dining society known as The Goblin Club. When his father was declared bankrupt in 1954, Cornwell left Oxford to teach at Millfield Preparatory School; however, a year later, he returned to Oxford, and graduated in 1956 with a First-Class degree in Modern Languages with a
German Literature German literature () comprises those literature, literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German parts of Switzerland and Belgium, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, South Tyrol in Italy ...
concentration. He then taught French and German at
Eton College Eton College ( ) is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school providing boarding school, boarding education for boys aged 13–18, in the small town of Eton, Berkshire, Eton, in Berkshire, in the United Kingdom. It has educated Prime Mini ...
for two years, before becoming an MI5 officer in 1958.


Work in security services

He ran agents, conducted interrogations, tapped telephone lines and effected break-ins. Encouraged by Lord Clanmorris (who wrote crime novels as "John Bingham"), and while being an active MI5 officer, Cornwell began writing his first novel, '' Call for the Dead'' (1961). Cornwell identified Lord Clanmorris as one of two models for George Smiley, the spymaster of the
Circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicy ...
, the other being Vivian H. H. Green. As a schoolboy, Cornwell first met the latter when Green was the Chaplain and Assistant Master at Sherborne School (1942–51). The friendship continued after Green's move to Lincoln College, where he tutored Cornwell. In 1960, Cornwell transferred to
MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
, the foreign-intelligence service, and worked under the cover of Second Secretary at the British Embassy in 
Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...
. He was later transferred to
Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...
as a political
consul Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states thro ...
. There, he wrote the detective story '' A Murder of Quality'' (1962) and ''
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold ''The Spy Who Came in from the Cold'' is a 1963 Cold War spy fiction, spy novel by the British author John le Carré. It depicts Alec Leamas, a United Kingdom, British intelligence officer, being sent to East Germany as a faux Defection, defect ...
'' (1963), as "John le Carré"—a pseudonym required because
Foreign Office Foreign may refer to: Government * Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries * Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries ** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government ** Foreign office and foreign minister * United ...
staff were forbidden to publish under their own names. The meaning of the pseudonym is ambiguous: he sometimes said he had seen "le Carré" on a storefront, and later said he couldn't remember an origin. When translated, "le carré" means "the square". In 1964, le Carré's career as an intelligence officer came to an end as the result of the betrayal of British agents' covers to the
KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...
by
Kim Philby Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby (1 January 191211 May 1988) was a British intelligence officer and a double agent for the Soviet Union. In 1963, he was revealed to be a member of the Cambridge Five, a spy ring that had divulged British secr ...
, the infamous British
double agent In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent is an employee of a secret intelligence service for one country, whose primary purpose is to spy on a target organization of another country, but who is now spying on their own country's organi ...
, one of the Cambridge Five. Le Carré depicted and analysed Philby as the upper-class traitor, codenamed "Gerald" by the KGB, the mole hunted by George Smiley in '' Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'' (1974).


Writing

Le Carré's first two novels, '' Call for the Dead'' (1961) and '' A Murder of Quality'' (1962), are
mystery fiction Mystery is a genre fiction, fiction genre where the nature of an event, usually a murder or other crime, remains wiktionary:mysterious, mysterious until the end of the story. Often within a closed circle of suspects, each suspect is usually prov ...
. Each features a retired spy, George Smiley, investigating a death; in the first book, the apparent suicide of a suspected communist, and in the second volume, a murder at a boys' public school. Although ''Call for the Dead'' evolves into an espionage story, Smiley's motives are more personal than political. Le Carré's third novel, ''
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold ''The Spy Who Came in from the Cold'' is a 1963 Cold War spy fiction, spy novel by the British author John le Carré. It depicts Alec Leamas, a United Kingdom, British intelligence officer, being sent to East Germany as a faux Defection, defect ...
'' (1963), became an international best-seller and remains one of his best-known works; following its publication, he left MI6 to become a full-time writer. Although le Carré had intended ''The Spy Who Came in from the Cold'' as an indictment of espionage as morally compromised, audiences widely viewed its protagonist, Alec Leamas, as a
tragic hero A tragic hero (or sometimes tragic heroine if they are female) is the protagonist of a tragedy. In his ''Poetics (Aristotle), Poetics'', Aristotle records the descriptions of the tragic hero to the playwright and strictly defines the place that t ...
. In response, le Carré's next book, '' The Looking Glass War'', was a satire about an increasingly deadly espionage mission which ultimately proves pointless. '' Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'', '' The Honourable Schoolboy'' and '' Smiley's People'' (the Karla trilogy) brought Smiley back as the central figure in a sprawling espionage saga depicting his efforts first to root out a mole in the Circus and then to entrap his Soviet rival and counterpart, code-named 'Karla'. The trilogy was originally meant to be a long-running series that would find Smiley dispatching agents after Karla all around the world. ''Smiley's People'' marked the last time Smiley featured as the central character in a le Carré story, although he brought the character back in '' The Secret Pilgrim'' and '' A Legacy of Spies''. '' A Perfect Spy'' (1986), which chronicles the boyhood moral education of Magnus Pym and how it leads to his becoming a spy, is the author's most autobiographical espionage novel, reflecting the boy's very close relationship with his con man father. Biographer LynnDianne Beene describes the novelist's own father, Ronnie Cornwell, as "an epic con man of little education, immense charm, extravagant tastes, but no social values". Le Carré reflected that "writing ''A Perfect Spy'' is probably what a very wise shrink would have advised". He also wrote a semi-autobiographical work, '' The Naïve and Sentimental Lover'' (1971), as the story of a man's midlife existential crisis. With the fall of the
Iron Curtain The Iron Curtain was the political and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. On the east side of the Iron Curtain were countries connected to the So ...
in 1989, le Carré's writing shifted to the portrayal of the new multilateral world. His first completely post-Cold War novel, '' The Night Manager'' (1993), deals with drug and arms smuggling in the world of Latin American
drug lord A drug lord, drug baron, kingpin, or lord of drugs is a type of crime boss in charge of a drug trafficking network, organization, or enterprise. Crime barons may be difficult to bring to justice: usually, they do not possess illegal goods. Ra ...
s, secretive Caribbean banking entities and corrupt Western officials. His final novel, '' Silverview'', was published posthumously in 2021.


Themes

Most of le Carré's books are spy stories set during the
Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
(1945–91) and portray British Intelligence agents as unheroic political functionaries, aware of the moral ambiguity of their work and engaged more in psychological than physical drama. While " spionagewas the genre that earned him fame...he used it as a platform to explore larger ethical problems and the human condition". The insight he demonstrated led "many fellow authors and critics o regardhim as one of the finest English-language novelists of the twentieth century." His writing explores "human frailty—moral ambiguity, intrigue, nuance, doubt, and cowardice". The fallibility of Western democracy – and of its secret services – is a recurring theme, as are suggestions of a possible east–west moral equivalence. Characters experience little of the violence typically encountered in
action thriller The action film is a film genre that predominantly features chase sequences, fights, shootouts, explosions, and stunt work. The specifics of what constitutes an action film has been in scholarly debate since the 1980s. While some scholars such as D ...
s and have very little recourse to gadgets. Much of the conflict is internal, rather than external and visible. The recurring character George Smiley, who plays a central role in five novels and appears as a supporting character in four more, was written as an "antidote" to
James Bond The ''James Bond'' franchise focuses on James Bond (literary character), the titular character, a fictional Secret Intelligence Service, British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels ...
, a character le Carré called "an international
gangster A gangster (informally gangsta) is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Most gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from ''Organized crime, mob'' and the suffix ''wikt:-ster, -st ...
" rather than a spy and who he felt should be excluded from the canon of espionage literature. In contrast, he intended Smiley, who is an overweight, bespectacled bureaucrat who uses cunning and manipulation to achieve his ends, as an accurate depiction of a spy. Le Carré's "writing entered intelligence services themselves. He popularized the term 'mole'...and other language that has become intelligence vernacular on both sides of the Atlantic — 'honeytrap', 'scalphunter', 'lamplighter' to name a few." However, in his first tweet as MI6's chief, Richard Moore revealed the agency's "complicated relationship with the author: He urged would-be Smileys not to apply to the service."


Other writing, film cameos

Le Carré records a number of incidents from his period as a diplomat in his autobiographical work, '' The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life'' (2016), which include escorting six visiting German parliamentarians to a London brothel and translating at a meeting between a senior German politician and
Harold Macmillan Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986), was a British statesman and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Nickn ...
. As a journalist, le Carré wrote ''The Unbearable Peace'' (1991), a nonfiction account of Brigadier Jean-Louis Jeanmaire (1911–1992), the
Swiss Army The Swiss Armed Forces (; ; ; ; ) are the military and security force of Switzerland, consisting of land and air service branches. Under the country's militia system, regular soldiers constitute a small part of the military and the rest are ...
officer, who spied for the Soviet Union from 1962 until 1975. Credited under his pen name, le Carré appears as an extra in the 2011 film version of '' Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'', among the guests at the Christmas party in several flashback scenes. He also appears, in uncredited cameo roles, as a museum usher in '' Our Kind of Traitor'' 2016 , and in the
BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
TV production '' The Night Manager'' (2016), as a restaurant diner.


Politics


Threats to democracy

In 2017, le Carré expressed concerns over the future of
liberal democracy Liberal democracy, also called Western-style democracy, or substantive democracy, is a form of government that combines the organization of a democracy with ideas of liberalism, liberal political philosophy. Common elements within a liberal dem ...
, saying: "I think of all things that were happening across Europe in the 1930s, in Spain, in Japan, obviously in Germany. To me, these are absolutely comparable signs of the rise of
fascism Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hie ...
and it's contagious, it's infectious. Fascism is up and running in Poland and Hungary. There's an encouragement about". He later wrote that the end of the Cold War had left the West without a coherent ideology, in contrast to the "notion of
individual freedom Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote realizing one's goals and desires, valuing independence and self-reliance, and ad ...
, of inclusiveness, of tolerance – all of that we called
anti-communism Anti-communism is Political movement, political and Ideology, ideological opposition to communism, communist beliefs, groups, and individuals. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, and it reached global ...
" prevailing during that time. Le Carré opposed both U.S. President
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...
and Russian President
Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Ru ...
, arguing that their desire to seek or maintain their countries' superpower status caused an impulse "for
oligarchy Oligarchy (; ) is a form of government in which power rests with a small number of people. Members of this group, called oligarchs, generally hold usually hard, but sometimes soft power through nobility, fame, wealth, or education; or t ...
, the dismissal of the truth, the contempt, actually, for the electorate and for the democratic system". Le Carré compared Trump's tendency to dismiss the media as "
fake news Fake news or information disorder is false or misleading information (misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, and hoaxes) claiming the aesthetics and legitimacy of news. Fake news often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person ...
" to the
Nazi book burnings The Nazi book burnings were a campaign conducted by the German Student Union (, ''DSt'') to ceremonially Book burning, burn books in Nazi Germany and First Austrian Republic, Austria in the 1930s. The books targeted for burning were those viewed ...
, and wrote that the United States is "heading straight down the road to
institutional racism Institutional racism, also known as systemic racism, is a form of institutional discrimination based on Race (human categorization), race or ethnic group and can include policies and practices that exist throughout a whole society or organizati ...
and
neo-fascism Neo-fascism is a post-World War II far-right ideology which includes significant elements of fascism. Neo-fascism usually includes ultranationalism, ultraconservatism, racial supremacy, right-wing populism, authoritarianism, nativism, xe ...
". In le Carré's 2019 novel '' Agent Running in the Field'', one of the novel's characters refers to Trump as "Putin's shithouse cleaner" who "does everything for little Vladi that little Vladi can't do for himself". The novel's narrator describes
Boris Johnson Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (born 19 June 1964) is a British politician and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He wa ...
as "a pig-ignorant foreign secretary". He says Russia is moving "backwards into her dark, delusional past", with Britain following a short way behind. Le Carré later said that he believed the novel's plotline, involving the U.S. and British intelligence services colluding to subvert the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
, to be "horribly possible".


Brexit

Le Carré was an outspoken advocate of
European integration European integration is the process of political, legal, social, regional and economic integration of states wholly or partially in Europe, or nearby. European integration has primarily but not exclusively come about through the European Union ...
and sharply criticised
Brexit Brexit (, a portmanteau of "Britain" and "Exit") was the Withdrawal from the European Union, withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU). Brexit officially took place at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February ...
. Le Carré criticised Brexit advocates such as
Boris Johnson Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (born 19 June 1964) is a British politician and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He wa ...
(whom he referred to as a "mob orator"), Dominic Cummings and
Nigel Farage Nigel Paul Farage ( ; born 3 April 1964) is a British politician and broadcaster who has been Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Clacton (UK Parliament constituency), Clacton and Leader of Reform UK since 20 ...
in interviews, claiming that their "task is to fire up the people with nostalgia ndwith anger". He further opined in interviews: "What really scares me about nostalgia is that it's become a political weapon. Politicians are creating a nostalgia for an England that never existed, and selling it, really, as something we could return to", adding that, with "the demise of the working class we saw also the demise of an established social order, based on the stability of ancient class structures". On the other hand, he said that in the Labour Party "they have this
Leninist Leninism (, ) is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the Dictatorship of the proletariat#Vladimir Lenin, dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary Vangu ...
element and they have this huge appetite to level society." On Brexit, le Carré did not mince his words, comparing it to the 1956
Suez crisis The Suez Crisis, also known as the Second Arab–Israeli War, the Tripartite Aggression in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel, was a British–French–Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956. Israel invaded on 29 October, having done so w ...
, which confirmed post-imperial Britain's loss of global power. "This is without doubt the greatest catastrophe and the greatest idiocy that Britain has perpetrated since the invasion of
Suez Suez (, , , ) is a Port#Seaport, seaport city with a population of about 800,000 in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez on the Red Sea, near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal. It is the capital and largest c ...
", le Carré said of
Brexit Brexit (, a portmanteau of "Britain" and "Exit") was the Withdrawal from the European Union, withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU). Brexit officially took place at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February ...
. "Nobody is to blame but the Brits themselves – not the Irish, not the Europeans." "The idea, to me, that at the moment we should imagine we can substitute access to the biggest trade union in the world with access to the American market is terrifying", he said. Speaking to ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' in 2019, he commented: "I've always believed, though ironically it's not the way I've voted, that it's compassionate conservatism that in the end could, for example, integrate the private schooling system. If you do it from the left you will seem to be acting out of resentment; do it from the right and it looks like good social organisation." Le Carré also said: "I think my own ties to England were hugely loosened over the last few years. And it's a kind of liberation, if a sad kind."


US invasion of Iraq

In January 2003, two months prior to the invasion, ''
The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...
'' published le Carré's essay "The United States Has Gone Mad" criticising the buildup to the Iraq War and President George W. Bush's response to the September 11 attacks, 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, calling it "worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs Invasion, Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War" and "beyond anything Osama bin Laden could have hoped for in his nastiest dreams". Le Carré participated in the London protests against the Iraq War. He said the war resulted from the "politicisation of intelligence to fit the political intentions" of governments and "How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America's anger from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history". He was critical of Tony Blair's role in taking Britain into the Iraq War, saying: "I can't understand that Blair has an afterlife at all. It seems to me that any politician who takes his country to war under false pretences has committed the ultimate sin. I think that a war in which we refuse to accept the body count of those that we kill is also a war of which we should be ashamed."


Iran

Le Carré was critical of Western governments' policies towards Iran. He said that Iran's actions are a response to being "encircled by nuclear powers" and by the way in which "we ousted Mohammad Mosaddegh, Mosaddeq through 1953 Iranian coup d'état, the CIA and the Secret Service here across the way and installed the Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah and trained his ghastly secret police force in all the black arts, the SAVAK". Le Carré feuded with Salman Rushdie over ''The Satanic Verses'', stating: "Nobody has a God-given right to insult a great religion and be published with impunity".


Israel

In a 1998 interview with Douglas Davis, Le Carré described Israel as "the most extraordinary carnival of human variety that I have ever set eyes on, a nation in the process of re-assembling itself from the shards of its past, now Oriental, now Western, now secular, now religious, but always anxiously moralizing about itself, criticizing itself with Maoist ferocity, a nation crackling with debate, rediscovering its past while it fought for its future." He declared: "No nation on earth was more deserving of peace—or more condemned to fight for it."


Personal life

In 1954, Cornwell married Alison Ann Veronica Sharp. They had three sons: Simon, Stephen and Timothy; they divorced in 1971. In 1972, Cornwell married Valerie Jane Eustace, a book editor with Hodder & Stoughton who collaborated with him behind the scenes. They had a son, Nicholas, who writes as Nick Harkaway. Le Carré lived in St Buryan, Cornwall, for more than 40 years; he owned a mile of cliff near Land's End. The house, Tregiffian Cottage, was put up for sale in 2023 for £3 million. Le Carré also owned a house in Gainsborough Gardens in Hampstead in north London. Le Carré was so disillusioned by the 2016
Brexit Brexit (, a portmanteau of "Britain" and "Exit") was the Withdrawal from the European Union, withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU). Brexit officially took place at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February ...
vote to leave the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
that he secured Irish citizenship. In a
BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
documentary broadcast in 2021, le Carré's son Nicholas revealed that his father's disillusionment with modern Britain, and Brexit in particular, had driven him to embrace his Irish heritage and become an Irish citizen. At the time of his death, le Carré's friend, the novelist John Banville, confirmed that the writer had researched his family roots in Inchinattin, near Rosscarbery, County Cork, and that he had applied for an Irish passport, to which he was entitled having completed the process of becoming an Irish citizen and having Irish ancestry through his maternal grandmother, Olive Wolfe. His neighbour and friend Philippe Sands recalled: Le Carré died at Royal Cornwall Hospital, Truro, on 12 December 2020, aged 89. An inquest completed in June 2021 concluded that le Carré died after sustaining a fall at his home. His wife Valerie died on 27 February 2021, two months after her husband, at age 82. In 2023, biographer Adam Sisman in ''The Secret Life of John le Carré'' identified 11 women with whom le Carré had affairs during his second marriage. Le Carré's son Timothy died on 31 May 2022 at the age of 59, shortly after he finished editing ''A Private Spy'', a collection of his father's letters.


Selected bibliography


Novels

* '' Call for the Dead'' (1961), * '' A Murder of Quality'' (1962), * ''
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold ''The Spy Who Came in from the Cold'' is a 1963 Cold War spy fiction, spy novel by the British author John le Carré. It depicts Alec Leamas, a United Kingdom, British intelligence officer, being sent to East Germany as a faux Defection, defect ...
'' (1963), * '' The Looking Glass War'' (1965), * ''A Small Town in Germany'' (1968), * '' The Naïve and Sentimental Lover'' (1971), * Smiley Versus Karla trilogy ** '' Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'' (1974), ** '' The Honourable Schoolboy'' (1977), ** '' Smiley's People'' (1979), * '' The Little Drummer Girl'' (1983), * '' A Perfect Spy'' (1986), * '' The Russia House'' (1989), * '' The Secret Pilgrim'' (1990), * '' The Night Manager'' (1993), * ''Our Game'' (1995), * '' The Tailor of Panama'' (1996), * ''Single & Single'' (1999), * '' The Constant Gardener'' (2001), * ''Absolute Friends'' (2003), * ''The Mission Song'' (2006), * '' A Most Wanted Man'' (2008), * '' Our Kind of Traitor'' (2010), * ''A Delicate Truth'' (2013), * '' A Legacy of Spies'' (2017), * '' Agent Running in the Field'' (2019), * '' Silverview'' (2021),


Archive

In 2010, le Carré donated his literary archive to the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The initial 85 boxes of material deposited included handwritten drafts of ''Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'' and ''The Constant Gardener''. The library hosted a public display of these and other items to mark World Book Day in March 2011.


Awards and honours

* 1963, Crime Writers' Association, British Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for ''
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold ''The Spy Who Came in from the Cold'' is a 1963 Cold War spy fiction, spy novel by the British author John le Carré. It depicts Alec Leamas, a United Kingdom, British intelligence officer, being sent to East Germany as a faux Defection, defect ...
'' * 1964, Somerset Maugham Award for ''The Spy Who Came in from the Cold'' * 1965, Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for ''The Spy Who Came in from the Cold'' * 1977, British Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for '' The Honourable Schoolboy'' * 1977, James Tait Black Memorial Prize Fiction Award for ''The Honourable Schoolboy'' * 1983, Japan Adventure Fiction Association Prize for '' The Little Drummer Girl'' * 1984, Honorary Fellow
Lincoln College, Oxford Lincoln College (formally, The College of the Blessed Mary and All Saints, Lincoln) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Lincoln was founded in 1427 by Richard Flemin ...
* 1984, Mystery Writers of America Edgar Grand Master * 1988, Crime Writers' Association Diamond Dagger Lifetime Achievement Award * 1988, The Premio Malaparte, Malaparte Prize, Italy * 1990, Honorary degree, University of Exeter * 1990, Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award, Helmerich Award of the Tulsa City-County Library, Tulsa Library Trust. * 1996, Honorary degree, University of St. Andrews * 1997, Honorary degree, University of Southampton * 1998, Honorary degree, University of Bath * 2005, Crime Writers' Association ''Dagger of Daggers'' for ''The Spy Who Came in from the Cold'' * 2005, Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Order of Arts and Letters, France * 2008, honorary doctorate,
University of Bern The University of Bern (, , ) is a public university, public research university in the Switzerland, Swiss capital of Bern. It was founded in 1834. It is regulated and financed by the canton of Bern. It is a comprehensive university offering a br ...
* 2011, Goethe Medal, awarded by the Goethe Institute * 2012, Honorary degree of Doctor of Letters, University of Oxford * 2020, Olof Palme Prize – le Carré donated the US$100,000 prize money to Médecins Sans Frontières. In addition in 2008, ''
The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...
'' ranked le Carré 22nd on its list of the "50 greatest British writers since 1945".


Citations


Sources

* * *


Further reading

* * * *


External links

*
Two interviews
at NPR's ''Fresh Air'' *
Two letters
at University of Leeds#Libraries, Leeds University Library * {{DEFAULTSORT:Le Carre, John John le Carré, 1931 births 2020 deaths Military personnel from Dorset 20th-century British Army personnel 20th-century English male writers 20th-century English novelists 20th-century Irish male writers 20th-century Irish novelists 20th-century pseudonymous writers 21st-century English male writers 21st-century English novelists 21st-century Irish male writers 21st-century Irish novelists 21st-century pseudonymous writers Accidental deaths from falls Accidental deaths in England Alumni of Lincoln College, Oxford Cartier Diamond Dagger winners Commandeurs of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Edgar Award winners English spy fiction writers English thriller writers Intelligence Corps officers Irish thriller writers James Tait Black Memorial Prize recipients MI5 personnel People educated at Sherborne School People educated at St Andrew's School, Pangbourne People from Poole Schoolteachers from Dorset MI6 personnel Writers from Dorset Teachers at Eton College Naturalised citizens of Ireland