John le Carré, who died over the weekend at age 89, left behind a remarkable literary legacy. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold Newcomers might begin with this novel, which catapulted le Carré to international fame and which Graham Greene called “the best spy story I have ever read.” Alec Leamas is a Cold War-era spy who takes …
During a 1996 interview with Andrew Ross, the British writer David Cornwell, better known by his nom de plume John Le Carré, was asked the secret behind his prolific output—he had been churning out a book every two years since the 1960s. Le Carré’s most famous character, the Cold War-era British spymaster George Smiley, was developed as “an antidote to …
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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. His Smiley novels are key to understanding the mid-20th century.” For le Carre, the world of espionage was a “metaphor for the human condition.” “I’m not part of the literary …
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