After John le Carré's death, his son had the 'daunting' task to revive George Smiley

After John le Carré's death, his son had the 'daunting' task to revive George Smiley toggle caption Nadav Kander/Penguin Random House When acclaimed British novelist John le Carré died in 2020, he left behind a literary legacy — and a mission for his family. Le Carré's son, author Nick Harkaway, describes it as "an obligation to try to keep the books read, to keep the name alive, but, more than anything else, to keep the books in circulation." Harkaway says reviving his father's characters amounted to a literary apprenticeship, of sorts: "I learned writing from him by osmosis, but we never really talked about writing very much," he explains. Sponsor Message On whether he felt his father’s spirit while writing I hoped in the inevitable kind of corny movie sequence way that when I wrote this book, I would sort of look up from my desk and see him sitting in the chair by the window, maybe with a kind of Obi-Wan Kenobi vibe: “Remember the semicolon.” And of course, I didn't.