“The best English novelist since the war.” -Philip Roth

David Cornwell, better known by his pseudonym John le Carré, was an Irish novelist best known for his espionage novels. Born in Poole, England in 1931, Cornwell was estranged from his mother from the age of five, and his relationship with his father was under constant tension. This didn’t stop him from pursuing his education, as he graduated with a degree in modern languages from the University of Oxford in 1956, with his sights set on a career in teaching. This trajectory quickly changed, however, as Cornwell was recruited by MI5, the British Security Service, in 1958. His knowledge of foreign languages quickly distinguished Cornwell as an officer, and in 1960 he transferred to MI6, the foreign intelligence service. It was during his time at MI6 that Cornwell began to write novels about his professional experiences, publishing them under the moniker John le Carré, due to regulations forbidding officers from publishing their legal names.

After the modest success of his first two novels, Cornwell’s third novel, 1963’s The Spy Who Came In from the Cold became a massive commercial success, motivating him to leave MI6 to pursue a career as a full time writer. Despite having published a prolific 26 novels over his lifetime, most of his work tackles similar settings and themes; most are centered around spies working during the Cold War and often call into question moral norms and subvert audience expectations surrounding the espionage genre. Cornwell remained productive well into his later years, with his final novel Silverview being published posthumously in 2021. He died in 2020 at the age of 89.

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