Out of the secret world I once knew,I have tried to make a theatre for the larger worlds we inhabit. First comes the imagining,then the search for reality. Then back to the imagining,and to the desk where I'm sitting now.
One of the greatest spy novelists of all time,John le Carre's life encompasses the Cold War era,when he served as a British Intelligence Officer,througha career as a writer that spans six decades. It is a journey that has taken him from war-torn Cambodia,to Beirut on the cusp of the 1982 Israeli invasion and Russia before and after the collapse of the Berlin Wall,inspiring writing that comes from the cusp of modern times.
The Pigeon Tunnel,le Carre's first memoir,is an incisive,often funny chronicle of these extraordinary times,written with the same critical eye for the moral ambiguity of human motivation with which his readers will already be familiar.
Le Carre revels as much in the minutiae of barely glimpsed moments as large-scale reportage and is as insightful writing about the parrot at a Beirut hotel that could perfectly mimic machine gun fire as he is conjuring memories of visiting Rwanda's museums of the unburied dead in the aftermath of the genocide. His personal history ranges over events from the incongruous experience of celebrating New Year's Eve with Yasser Arafat to moments of agonising tension,such as interviewing a German terrorist in her desert prison in the Negev,imbuing every moment with vividness and humour.
Best of all,le Carre gives us a glimpse of a writer's inspiration and the search for the human spark that has given so much life and heart to his fictional characters.
'No other writer has charted - pitilessly for politicians but thrillingly for readers - the public and secret histories of his times'The Guardian'John le Carre is as recognizable a writer as Dickens or Austen'-The Financial Times
'When I was under house arrest I was helped by the books of John le Carre ...they were a journey into the wider world ...These were the journeys that made me feel that I was not really cut off from the rest of humankind'- Aung San Suu Kyi
Publisher: Penguin Books LtdISBN: 9780241976890Number of pages: 352Weight: 303 gDimensions: 198 x 129 x 25 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
Fascinating,important,pithy. Anyone interested in le Carré and his significant contribution to the literature of the 20th and 21st centuries will want to read these engaging meanderings through his life and career.He has plenty to say about Kim Philby,the movie business,fellow spooks and Russian defectors,encounters with the great and good,and his intrepid travels to research his novelsVintage le Carré...(he) remains a magician of plot and counter-plot,a master storytellerJohn le Carré is as recognizable a writer as Dickens or AustenWhen I was under house arrest I was helped by the books of John le Carré...they were a journey into the wider world...These were the journeys that made me feel that I was not really cut off from the rest of humankindNo other writer has charted - pitilessly for politicians but thrillingly for readers - the public and secret histories of his timesA smashing read Offers thrills of recognition as le Carré's archetypes spring to life... The 84-year old novelist discards extended narrative and writes in elegiac fragments with linking harmonies,like the late works of that other German Romantic,Beethoven Exceptionally well-turned and enjoyableGrippingly written,it is revealing in ways the author never intended it to beCagey,clever,revealingle Carré is a master of the art... fascinatingly readableFrank and fascinatingThe Pigeon Tunnel is a delight... a collection of highly polishes oddments from a life,assembled to entertain and inform...fabulously funnyA snapshot of a story that is,truly,as extraordinary as any of his fictionFor me The Pigeon Tunnel just confirms the enigma... extremely humorous... at no point do I feel that I knew one tiny bit more than he wants me to knowHe has written an uproarious,darkly poignant and precious bookA beautiful book. The great glory of it is it comes close to unlocking the central mystery of le CarréAs enthralling as his fictionLe Carré is such a good writer...Though urbane and detached,there is rage simmering not far below the surface of both le Carré and his new book. But then,nothing,absolutely nothing,is what it seemsA deeply personal and touching account of le Carré's life...it has undeniable powerExplosivele Carré's The Pigeon Tunnel is exquisiteI savoured the gravelly,quietly insistent voice of a master storyteller examining his own lifethe entertaining recollections of a raconteurElusive and frank and witty by turns,the spy master gives away just as much of himself as he wants to in The Pigeon Tunnel, tracing the story of his life through his walk-on parts in the history and mythology of the cold war,and the shape-shifting discipline of his imagination
John le Carré
One of the greatest spy novelists of all time,John le Carré was born in 1931. 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 all featuring his most famous character,George Smiley,the quintessential Cold War operative. An antidote to Fleming's racier James Bond,Smiley is cool,thoughtful,somewhat academic and (superficially) "breathtakingly normal"with a somewhat ambivalent attitude to the Service and its efficacy. His other novels,thrillers which range widely covering variously political issues of the arms trade,modern conflict and drug-trafficking,include: A Most Wanted Man,Our Kind of Traitor,A Delicate Truth and the recently adapted The Night Manager. His only work of non-fiction,The Pigeon Tunnel,was a Number One bestseller in 2016.
Visit the John le Carré author page
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