Renowned novelist John le Carre, 89, died of pneumonia on December 12, 2020. He was well-known as a thriller writer for stories of complex cold war intrigue. He began his career as a real-life spy in post-war Europe. His Cold War thrillers are known to have elevated the spy novel to high art by presenting both Western and Soviet spies as morally compromised persons in a rotten system full of treachery, betrayal, and personal tragedy.
His Works He began working for the secret services while studying German in Switzerland at the end of the 1940s. After teaching at Eton, he joined the British Foreign Service as an intelligence officer, recruiting, running, and looking after spies behind the Iron Curtain (the political, military, and ideological barrier, erected by the Soviet Union after WWII to seal off itself and its dependent eastern and central European allies from open contact with the West and other non-communist areas).
His novels The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and The Night Manager gained him critical acclaim and made him a bestseller around the world. They explored the gap between the west’s high-flown rhetoric of freedom and the gritty reality of defending it. He wrote more than two dozen books, addressing the power of pharmaceutical companies, and American and British human-rights excesses.
Achievements He was awarded Primetime Emmy (Nominee) in 2016, Edgar Allan Poe award (Nominee) in 1992, Producers Guild of America Award (Nominee) in 2017, USC Script Award (Winner) in 2017, USC Script Award (Nominee) in 2012, and USC Script Award (Nominee) in 2006.