The Achievement of John le Carré s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy theatlantic.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theatlantic.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
His family said he died of pneumonia.
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
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 Carré obituary Eric Homberger
John le Carré, who has died aged 89 of pneumonia, raised the spy novel to a new level of seriousness and respect.
He was in his late 20s when he began to write fiction – in longhand, in small red pocket notebooks, on his daily train journey between his home in Buckinghamshire and his day job with MI5, the counter-intelligence service, in London. After the publication of two neatly crafted novels, Call for the Dead (1961) and A Murder of Quality (1962), which received measured reviews and modest sales, he hit the big time with The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963).
He Makes Us Love George Smiley: Robert Harris On The Legacy Of John Le Carré iowapublicradio.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from iowapublicradio.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.