Exploring ambivalence

As an "espionage" novelist, le Carre broke what may be called the Ian Fleming mould

Born in October 1931, John le Carré passed away on 12 December. In mufti, le Carré was David Cornwell, beginning his professional life as a British intelligence officer who parlayed his experiences into a body of literary work that has few parallels in post-war British fiction.

Though le Carré’s reputation as one of the pre-eminent post-war British novelists is now secure, the distinction too often made between “literary” fiction and “genre” fiction has led, unconscionably, to his pigeon-holing as an espionage novelist. He was clearly much more than that.

As an “espionage” novelist, le Carré broke what may be called the Ian