The Spy who came in from the Cold: Home

"The engrossing espionage thrillers of John le Carré (leh kuh-RAY) are in reality complex character studies disguised as spy novels, a fact that has won him a degree of critical acclaim quite rare in a field dominated by plot and action rather than moral complexity ..."

"John le Carré, who has died aged 89 of pneumonia, raised the spy novel to a new level of seriousness and respect ... "

"John le Carré is the pseudonym of David John Moore Cornwell, who was born in Poole, Dorset, on October 19, 1931. His early family life was troubled: his father, Ronald Cornwell, was sentenced to prison for fraud, and shortly thereafter his mother, Olive Grassy, deserted her husband ... "

"The true mystery in a mystery novel is not that of the crime committed near its beginning and solved near its end but instead that posed by the nature of the detective who solves it ... "

" ... The traditional spy story of the early twentieth century was set in a world full of hazards but free from moral ambiguities—apart from the fundamental ambiguity, rarely perceived by the authors or the reading public, of a double standard applied to espionage and counterespionage activities, depending on whether these were carried on by "us" or "them." ... "

" ... The players changed, the game went on. He had focused on the cold war from the 1960s because it was the overriding drama of the age. Others quickly succeeded it: the arms trade ("The Night Manager"), the war on terror ("Absolute Friends"), Big Pharma's misdeeds in Africa ("The Constant Gardener"). Trump's America and Johnson's Britain, with their spoon-fed media and nationalistic duping of the public, appalled him equally. Each deserved excoriation in a book in which the characters acted out a global argument, just as the closed society of spies had been, for him, a theatre of the world ... "

" ... In an oeuvre that began more than half a century ago, le Carre (the pen name of David John Moore Cornwell) has used the spy novel for biting comment on western societies, especially Britain and Germany. Unlike in the works of Ian Fleming or roberty Ludlum, the good guys rarely ever win in le Carre's novels ... "

During the years following World War II, a certain popular-thriller glamor attached to the image of Western secret agents. Cold War heroes, they countered the Red menace in Greece, Berlin, Guatemala. and elsewhere.That espionage could be a dubious, often amoral game seldom occurred to the readers of Ian Fleming's James Bond stories ... "

"British author and former Director General of MI5, Dame Stella Rimington, tells us why she thinks John le Carré is the master of the spy novel in Cold War times and draws on her own experience ... "

"David Cornwell is possibly one of the least known best-selling authors in the world. His novels tell tales of espionage and betrayal, thrilling millions of readers who know him by his pen name, John le Carré. Sunday he died at the age of 89 ... "

"In this interview, John le Carré, the famous author of The spy who came from the cold, addresses various topics such as book movie adaptations and his motivation to write. He also discusses the Cold War and the Intelligence world, bringing us some insight into its recent evolutions ... "