On Sunday, Le Carré's family confirmed he died of pneumonia at the royal cornwall hospital in Britain on Saturday night. Its agent, Jonny Geller, described Le Carré as "the undisputed giant of English literature" and "he defined the Cold War era". The British popular novelist Robert Harris mourned that "[Le Carré] was one of the great post-war British novelists and an unforgettable and unique figure". Irish crime novelist Adrian McKinty also called Le Carré's masterpiece Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy "the greatest spy novel of all time."
Le Carré was born on October 19, 1931, as David Cornwell. At the age of 18, Le Carré went to the University of Bern in Switzerland to study literature, and during the same period, Le Carré, who knew German, began working for the Secret Service as a spy for East Berlin. After graduating from the University of Bern, Le Carré entered Lincoln College, Oxford University. After 1956, Le Carré taught at Eton College. But he soon joined the British Foreign Office, where during the Cold War he was responsible for recruiting, managing and monitoring spies behind the iron curtain.
The image comes from the Internet
Inspired by his M5 (British Security Service, also known as MI5) colleague and novelist John Bingham, he began publishing thriller novels under the pseudonym John Le Carré, but publishers at the time suggested he choose two monosyllabic names as pen names, such as "chunk-smith."
In 1961, Le Carré used his colleague Bingham as the prototype for the character George Smiley, who had a continuing influence, and published his debut novel, Call for the Dead. In 1962, the protagonist, Smiley, in his second novel, A Murder of Quality, begins investigating the killings at a public school. A year later, his third thriller spy novel, The Spy Who came in from the cold, took Le Carré's writing career to a new level. The protagonist, Smyley, reappears, but this story about East German intelligence is rife with the author's world-weary cynicism. The novel's great success also surprised Le Carré.
"Pot Makers, Tailors, Soldiers, Spies", author: John Le Carré, translator: Dong Leshan, version: Beijing Century Wenjing Culture Communication Company, June 2014
In the 1970s, Le Carré's protagonist, Smiley, was added to three newly published novels about the battle between Smiley and Karla, the head of Soviet intelligence. The "Smiley Trilogy" includes "The Pot maker, the tailor, the soldier, the spy," "The honourable schoolboy," and "Smiley's People." Le Carré's work was also constantly adapted to the big screen, with "The Pot Maker, the Tailor, the Soldier, the Spy" being remade into a film in 1979 and 2011. Tom Siddston, who starred in the BBC adaptation of the TV series Night Manager, said: "Our fascination with spies stems from our innate curiosity about truth and identity issues. Even as children, we have a deep understanding of the crime of lying... John Le Carré is our architect for understanding the world of espionage. ”
As the Cold War ended, when asked "what are you going to write about now," Le Carré said his worries were always broader than the "East-West conflict." In 2017, Le Carré completed his final work, A Legacy of Spies, and Smiley's story came to an end. The 2005 Booker Prize winner and renowned Irish writer John Banville wrote in The Guardian praising Le Carré's originality and skill, arguing that "since Spy Le Carré became a storyteller, he has played such a powerful and exciting talent".
The Legacy of The Spy, by John Le Carré, translator: Wenzel, edition: Century Wenjing| Shanghai People's Publishing House, July 2020
In fact, for decades, Le Carré has been portrayed as a dark and mysterious figure. In 2016, his personal memoir, the pigeon tunnel: stories from my life, struck readers. Among them, Le Carré details his broken relationship with his sadistic cheater father, as well as other eccentric lives involving the spy writer. In his autobiography I Believe In Reading, American editor Robert Gottlieb also recalled interesting things about his relationship with Le Carré.
Le Carré, who had a lifelong love of writing, wrote: "Outside the secret world, I once knew that I was trying to build a theater for the larger world in which we lived", "first the imagination, then the pursuit of reality." Then go back to imagination, and back to the table I'm sitting at now."
Image courtesy of le carré in his study, photo ralph crane
Reference Links:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/dec/13/john-le-carre-author-of-tinker-tailor-soldier-spy-dies-aged-89
https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2020/dec/14/john-le-carre-a-life-in-pictures
https://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2016/sep/03/hes-very-sexy-tom-hiddleston-simon-russell-beale-and-other-actors-on-le-carre
The author | Wang Tianyi
Editor| Zhang Ting
Proofreader | Li Ming
Source: Beijing News