A critic looking for simple binaries would be better off reading novels about “the hyena who stalks the capitalist deserts,” James Bond, a character with “the one piece of equipment without which not even his formula would work: an entirely evil enemy. Le Carré felt intruded on by Adam Sisman’s 2015 biography and quickly offered an “antidote” in his memoir The Pigeon Tunnel. Men and women of conviction, on both sides, are swallowed up by a game of one-upmanship run by suits in London and Moscow.

The book, which was about an East German spy ring in London, introduced readers to the character of George Smiley, an S. He wrote a letter to his stepmother about his newfound fame and fortune: “It’s all right, I suppose, as long as you don’t enjoy it.

When everyone is out for themselves and keeping secrets from one another, it becomes impossible to spot the traitor.

He had a fascination with monks but they couldn’t have been more different from his father Ronnie, a divorcé (le Carré’s mother left him when the boy was five) and a criminal who would soon be exposed in the press as a heavy-duty con man after a bankruptcy that made headlines. In 1972 he married Jane Eustace, who had worked in publishing and introduced him to Bob Gottlieb, his longtime editor at Knopf.Many of his characters are quiet, ordinary people longing for honorable work and finding, as we do, all paths riddled with complicity and compromise. Usually they were dreary, evasive letters loosening vows at the same time they renewed them, qualified, haunted, the reverse of reassuring. View image in fullscreen The author with Gary Oldman at the premiere of ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’, London 2011. He spoke excellent German,” le Carré said, “and he always reminded us in German class, as everyone was demonising Germany with justice, that there was another Germany, an enduring one and a much older one and a wise and loveable Germany.

It describes his entry into MI5 and the rise of the Iron Curtain, and the flowering of his career as a novelist in reaction to the building of the Berlin Wall. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. He pursues guides to far-flung places like a spy recruiting sources, and reports back his findings through novels—often by putting us inside the experiences of those on the wrong end of power.There was, he knew, something more enduring about his work, even though it depended on the knowledge he’d acquired inside the secret tent: It was literature. You can unsubscribe from our list at any point by changing your preferences, or contacting us directly. After several telephone conversations in which she was nervous and he reassured her, he arrived unexpectedly early on the Friday evening, bearing champagne, foie gras, and a typescript of his novel, which he presented to her.