Former spy whose thrilling novels defined the Cold War
LONDON — John le Carre, the spy-turned-novelist whose elegant and intricate narratives defined the Cold War espionage thriller and brought acclaim to a genre critics had once ignored, has died. He was 89,
Le Carre’s literary agency, Curtis Brown, said Sunday that he died in Cornwall, southwest England on Saturday after a short illness. The death was not related to COVID-19.
In such classics as “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold,” “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” and “The Honourable Schoolboy,” Le Carre combined terse, but lyrical prose with the kind of complexity expected in literary fiction. His books grappled with betrayal, moral compromise and the psychological toll of a secret life. In the quiet, watchful spymaster George Smiley, he created one of 20th-century fiction’s iconic characters — a decent man at the heart of a web of deceit.
For le Carre, the world of espionage was a “metaphor for the human condition.”
Born David Cornwell, le Carre worked for Britain’s intelligence service before turning his experience into fiction in works including “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy” and “The Spy WhoCamein from the Cold.”
“I’m not part of the literary bureaucracy if you like that categorizes everybody: Romantic, Thriller, Serious,” le Carre told The Associated Press in 2008. “I just go with what I want to write about and the characters. I don’t announce this to myself as a thriller or an entertainment.
“I think all that is pretty silly stuff. It’s easier for booksellers and critics, but I don’t buy that categoriza
tion. I mean, what’s ‘A Tale of TwoCities?’ — a thriller?”
His other works included “Smiley’s People,” “The Russia House,” and, in 2017, the likely Smiley farewell, “A Legacy of Spies.”
Many novels were adapted for film and television, notably the 1965 productions of “Smiley’s People’ and “Tinker, Tailor” featuring Alec Guinness as Smiley.
Le Carre was drawn to espionage by an upbringing that was superficially conventional but secretly tumultuous.
He was born David John Moore Cornwell in Poole, southwest England on Oct. 19, 1931.
His father, Ronnie Cornwell, was a con man who was an associate of gangsters and spent time in jail for insurance fraud. His mother left the family when David was 5; he didn’t meet her again until he was 21.
After university — which was interrupted by his father’s bankruptcy — he taught at the prestigious boarding school Eton before
joining the foreign service.
Officially a diplomat, he was in fact a “lowly” operative with the domestic intelligence service MI5 — he’d started as a student at Oxford — and then its overseas counterpart MI6, serving in Germany, then on the Cold War front line, under the cover of second secretary at the British Embassy.
His first three novels were written while he was a spy, and his employers required him to publish under a pseudonym. He remained “le Carre” for his entire career. He said he chose the name — square in French — simply because he liked the vaguely mysterious, European sound of it.
In 1954, le Carre married Alison Sharp, with whomhe had three sons before they divorced in 1971. In 1972 he married Valerie Eustace, with whom he had a son, the novelist Nick Harkaway.
Le Carre reportedly turned down an honor from Queen Elizabeth II and said he did not want his books considered for literary prizes.