Description

John le Carre was a defining writer of his time. This enthralling collection letters – written to readers, publishers, film-makers and actors, politicians and public figures – reveals the playfully intelligent and unfailingly eloquent man behind the penname.
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‘The symbiosis of author and editor, father and son, has resulted in a brilliant book, le Carre’s final masterpiece’ 5*, Jake Kerridge, Sunday Telegraph
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A Private Spy spans seven decades and chronicles not only le Carre’s own life but the turbulent times to which he was witness. Beginning with his 1940s childhood, it includes accounts of his National Service and his time at Oxford, and his days teaching the ‘chinless, pointy-nosed gooseberry-eyed British lords’ at Eton. It describes his entry into MI5 and the rise of the Iron Curtain, and the flowering of his career as a novelist in reaction to the building of the Berlin Wall. Through his letters we travel with him from the Second World War period to the immediate moment in which we live. We find le Carre writing to Sir Alec Guinness to persuade him to take on the role of George Smiley, and later arguing the immorality of the War on Terror with the chief of the German internal security service. What emerges is a portrait not only of the writer, or of the global intellectual, but, in his own words, of the very private, very passionate and very real man behind the name.
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Includes letters to:
John Banville
William Burroughs
John Cheever
Stephen Fry
Graham Greene
Sir Alec Guinness
Hugh Laurie
Ben Macintyre
Ian McEwan
Gary Oldman
Philip Roth
Philippe Sands
Sir Tom Stoppard
Margaret Thatcher
And more…

Publisher Review

Each letter from John le Carre was a beautifully written miniature essay ... fascinating -- Ben Macintyre * The Times * A Private Spy testifies to le Carre's universally acknowledged gifts as a raconteur, mimic and caricaturist -- Robert Potts * TLS * Unsurprisingly, he was a brilliant correspondent. Revelations tumble out...These engaging letters are edited with great fairness and sensitivity by a family member, his son Tim Cornwell -- Andrew Lycett * Mail on Sunday * The symbiosis of author and editor, father and son, has resulted in a brilliant book, le Carre's final masterpiece, 5* -- Jake Kerridge * Sunday Telegraph * The finest, wisest storyteller -- Richard Osman A towering writer -- Margaret Atwood [He had a] rare command of language and unique understanding of how the world really works * Daily Telegraph on Silverview * A literary giant -- Stephen King