> Skip to content
John le Carré
Photo Credit: Nadav Kandar

John le Carré

Book for an event


John le Carré was born in 1931. For six decades, he wrote novels that came to define our age. The son of a confidence trickster, he spent his childhood between boarding school and the London underworld. At sixteen he found refuge at the university of Bern, then later at Oxford. A spell of teaching at Eton led him to a short career in British Intelligence (MI5&6). He published his debut novel, Call for the Dead, in 1961 while still a secret servant. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, secured him a worldwide reputation, which was consolidated by the acclaim for his trilogy Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People. At the end of the Cold War, le Carré widened his scope to explore an international landscape including the arms trade and the War on Terror. His memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel, was published in 2016 and the last George Smiley novel, A Legacy of Spies, appeared in 2017. He died on 12 December 2020. His posthumous novel Silverview was published in 2021.

More features

Article
Find your perfect summer read!

Need help finding your next great beach read? This collection has every kind of reader covered.

Article
5 books to take to the beach this summer!

Summer is a great time to catch up on prizewinners from the previous 12 months, return to old favourites or for a bit of personal development. Here are our top five suggestions.

Article
Announcing a new novel by John le Carré

Agent Running in the Field will be published in October 2019.

Video
The Little Drummer Girl | FIRST LOOK - BBC

SUBSCRIBE for more BBC highlights: https://bit.ly/2IXqEIn From the producers of The Night Manager and directed by Park Chan-Wook, Alexander Skarsgård, Michael Shannon and Florence Pugh star in brand new John Le Carré drama adaptation, The Little Drummer Girl. Coming soon to BBC One. Watch thrilling drama Box Sets on BBC iPlayer: https://bbc.in/2u0ay8l The Little Drummer Girl | BBC