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 바카라The Spy Who Came in from the Cold,바카라 바카라Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy바카라 and 바카라The Honourable Schoolboy,바카라 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 바카라 a decent man at the heart of a web of deceit.
바카라John 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: 바카라Very sorry to hear this. His Smiley novels are key to understanding the mid-20th century.바카라 For le Carre, the world of espionage was a 바카라metaphor for the human condition.바카라 바카라I'm not part of the literary bureaucracy if you like that categorizes everybody: Romantic, Thriller, Serious,바카라 le Carre told The Associated Press in 2008. 바카라I 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.
바카라I think all that is pretty silly stuff. It's easier for booksellers and critics, but I don't buy that categorization. I mean, what's 'A Tale of Two Cities?' 바카라 a thriller?바카라 His other works included 바카라Smiley's People,바카라 바카라The Russia House,바카라 and, in 2017, the Smiley farewell, 바카라A Legacy of Spies.바카라 Many novels were adapted for film and television, notably the 1965 productions of 바카라Smiley's People' and 바카라Tinker Tailor바카라 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 바카라 where he interrogated Eastern Bloc defectors 바카라 and a degree in modern languages at Oxford University. But his ostensibly standard upper-middle-class 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.
It was a childhood of uncertainty and extremes: one minute limousines and champagne, the next eviction from the family's latest accommodation. It bred insecurity, an acute awareness of the gap between surface and reality 바카라 and a familiarity with secrecy that would serve him well in his future profession.
바카라These were very early experiences, actually, of clandestine survival,바카라 le Carre said in 1996. 바카라The whole world was enemy territory.바카라 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 바카라lowly바카라 operative with the domestic intelligence service MI5 바카라he'd started as a student at Oxford 바카라 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 바카라le Carre바카라 for his entire career. He said he chose the name 바카라 square in French 바카라 simply because he liked the vaguely mysterious, European sound of it.
바카라Call For the Dead바카라 appeared in 1961 and 바카라A Murder of Quality바카라 in 1962. Then in 1963 came 바카라The Spy Who Came in From the Cold,바카라 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. Le Carre said it was written at one of the darkest points of the Cold War, just after the building of the Berlin Wall, at a time when he and his colleagues feared nuclear war might be imminent.
바카라So I wrote a book in great heat which said 'a plague on both your houses,'바카라 le Carre told the BBC in 2000.
It was immediately hailed as a classic and allowed him to quit the intelligence service to become a full-time writer.
His depictions of life in the clubby, grubby, ethically tarnished world of 바카라The Circus바카라 바카라 the books' code-name for MI6 바카라 were the antithesis of Ian Fleming's suave action-hero James Bond, and won le Carre a critical respect that eluded Fleming.
