Spy novelist John le Carre dies at 89
Author served in intelligence
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 he died in Cornwall, southwest England, on Saturday after a short illness. The agency said his death was not related to COVID-19. His family said he died of pneumonia
In classics such 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.
“John le Carre has passed at the age of 89. This terrible year has claimed a literary giant and a humanitarian spirit,” tweeted novelist Stephen King. Margaret Atwood said: “Very sorry to hear this. His Smiley novels are key to understanding the mid-20th century.”
His other works included “Smiley’s People,” “The Russia House,” and, in 2017, the 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.
Born David John Moore Cornwell in Poole, southwest England on Oct. 19, 1931, he appeared to have a standard upper-middle-class education: the private Sherborne School, a year studying German literature at the University of Bern, compulsory military service in Austria — where he interrogated Eastern Bloc defectors — and a degree in modern languages at Oxford University.
But his ostensibly ordinary upbringing was an illusion. 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 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, 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.
“Call For the Dead” appeared in 1961 and “A Murder of Quality” in 1962. Then in 1963 came “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold,” a tale of an agent forced to carry out one last, risky operation in divided Berlin. It raised one of the author’s recurring themes: the blurring of moral lines that is part and parcel of espionage, and the difficulty of distinguishing good guys from bad.
It was immediately hailed as a classic and allowed him to quit the intelligence service to become a full-time writer.
“A Perfect Spy,” his most autobiographical novel, looks at the formation of a spy in the character of Magnus Pym,
a boy whose criminal father and unsettled upbringing bear a strong resemblance to le Carre’s own.
His writing continued unabated after the Cold War ended and the front lines of the espionage wars shifted. “The Tailor of Panama” was set in Central America. “The Constant Gardener,” which was turned into a film starring Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz, was about the pharmaceutical industry’s machinations in Africa.
“Agent Running in the Field,” published in 2019, brought his stories of duplicity and deceit into the era of Brexit and Donald Trump.
Le Carre is survived by his wife, Jane Eustace, and sons Nicholas, Timothy, Stephen and Simon.