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British writer John le Carre, known for his spy thriller, died Saturday at the age of 89 of pneumonia, as his publisher Penguin Books announced Sunday night. Le Carre, whose real name was David Cornwell, was best known for his spy novels. His secret service novels “The Spy Who Came Out of the Cold”, published in 1963, were a worldwide success.
The books John le Carre, who was born on October 19, 1931 in Poole, England, gained authenticity, mainly because he had worked for the British intelligence services MI5 and MI6 for some time before dedicating himself to writing and especially with it. the figure of the secret agent George Smiley became a success. Le Carre made himself known to a wide audience through the numerous film adaptations of his works. Templates like “Dame, König, Ace, Spion”, “Das Russlandhaus” or “The Eternal Gardener” also achieved great success on the screen.
A life of constant lies
Secrets, betrayals and lies invaded the primitive family environment of English. His mother, an actress, left the family when he was five years old. His father was a con man who moved between deluded wealth and jail, and much later he sometimes posed as his son, the famous writer, to impress women. “We were living in lies all the time,” Le Carre recalled. “It said my father was on vacation. Except he wasn’t on vacation, but in jail.” He found conspiracy and treason everywhere.
Le Carre himself studied German in Switzerland and ended up working as a British Secret Service agent, although not with much success. Meanwhile, he began to write; With his third novel, “The Spy Who Came from the Cold,” he made a breakthrough. He became known for his clever and suspenseful spy novels, which primarily revolved around the Cold War.
At the same time, Le Carre wanted to be more than a spy novel author throughout his life. He repeatedly spoke out politically and condemned, for example, the Western “war on terror.” He criticized Günter Grass for his long silence on Waffen SS membership and journalists for their superficiality. The author continued to be accusatory, uncomfortable, argumentative, and argumentative well into old age.
An uncomfortable teacher
After the end of the Cold War, which for a long time provided the thematic background for Le Carre’s work, Africa became the author’s new favorite setting. There, “The Eternal Gardener” was already being played, a tragic story of the failure of good Westerners in the face of the dark businesses of the pharmaceutical companies. In general, after the end of the East-West conflict, le Carre focused mainly on the wounds of the world, whether it was drug trafficking, dirty arms deals or the machinations of the powerful of all stripes.
In this sense, Le Carre differed from most commercial thriller writers. He was always a master of the tension that carries the reader breathless through novels, however long, but at the same time he shone with linguistic elegance and a character complexity that many “serious” authors were envious of. Espionage, conspiracies and all the secrecy are just a backdrop, “furniture”, Le Carre used to emphasize.
Each of his books was essentially about people in the action network, about love and betrayal. Betrayal of service, of one’s partner, of one’s own convictions or of oneself: Le Carre explored many facets and depths of the human soul in his five decades as a writer. And love was always involved; after all, you can only reveal what you love, he once said.
From the Cold War to Brexit
The most famous character in the Le Carre universe will likely remain George Smiley, the overweight cunning master spy eaten by moral doubts and constantly betrayed by his wife. The trilogy of “Dame, König, As, Spion”, “Eine Kind Held” and “Agent in Eigenachen” (1973-79) consolidated the world-wide fame of Le Carre. Smiley was also one of Alec Guinness’s most popular roles.
Badminton, the last of his published novels, was about Brexit last year. In the words of the characters, he let flow a large part of his own opinions: that Britain with the “shit chaos” of Brexit is going to depend unconditionally on the United States and that the president of the United States, Donald Trump, is “a threat to the whole civilized world. ” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson must also be “detained immediately”. “I am very afraid of leaving Europe. I am convinced that if we stay, we can strengthen the spirit of Europe and help create a real counterweight with the United States and China,” he said in an interview with dpa. .
Le Carre last lived in seclusion with his second wife Jane in London and Cornwall, where she died on Saturday. After a turbulent life with adventures around the world on his research trips and some marital infidelity, he had found his peace. “I feel ready to die,” Le Carre said a few years ago. “If it all ended too soon, I would feel nothing but gratitude. It would be a sin not to be grateful for a life like mine.” (apa / dpa)
