RIP John Le Carré 1931-2020

David John Moore Cornwell, better known by his pen name John le Carré, was a British author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and 1960s, he worked for both the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence ServiceM15 and M16.

His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), became an international best-seller and remains one of his best-known works.

Most of le Carré’s books are spy stories set during the Cold War (1945–91) and portray British Intelligence agents as unheroic political functionaries aware of the moral ambiguity of their work and engaged more in psychological than physical drama

George Smiley and related novels

Call for the Dead (1961), OCLC 751303381
A Murder of Quality (1962), OCLC 777015390
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), OCLC 561198531
The Looking Glass War (1965), OCLC 752987890
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974), ISBN 0-143-12093-X
The Honourable Schoolboy (1977), ISBN 0-143-11973-7
Smiley’s People (1979), ISBN 0-340-99439-8
The Russia House (1989), ISBN 0-743-46466-4
The Secret Pilgrim (1990), ISBN 0-345-50442-9
A Legacy of Spies (2017), ISBN 978-0-735-22511-4[52]

George Smiley collections

The Incongruous Spy (1964), containing Call for the Dead and A Murder of Quality, OCLC 851437951
The Quest for Karla (1982), containing Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley’s People (republished in 1995 as Smiley Versus Karla in the UK; and John Le Carré: Three Complete Novels in the U.S.), ISBN 0-394-52848-4

Semi-autobiographical

The Naïve and Sentimental Lover (1971), ISBN 0-143-11975-3
A Perfect Spy (1986), ISBN 0-143-11976-1

Standalone

A Small Town in Germany (1968), ISBN 0-143-12260-6
The Little Drummer Girl (1983), ISBN 0-143-11974-5
The Night Manager (1993), ISBN 0-345-38576-4
Our Game (1995), ISBN 0-345-40000-3
The Tailor of Panama (1996), ISBN 0-345-42043-8
Single & Single (1999), ISBN 0-743-45806-0
The Constant Gardener (2001), ISBN 0-743-28720-7
Absolute Friends (2003), ISBN 0-670-04489-X
The Mission Song (2006), ISBN 0-340-92199-4
A Most Wanted Man (2008), ISBN 1-416-59609-7
Our Kind of Traitor (2010), ISBN 0-143-11972-9
A Delicate Truth (2013), ISBN 0-143-12531-1
Agent Running in the Field (2019), ISBN 1984878875

Awards and honours

1963, British Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger for The Spy Who Came in from the Cold[61]
1964, Somerset Maugham Award for The Spy Who Came in from the Cold[62]
1965, Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for The Spy Who Came in from the Cold[63]
1977, British Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger for The Honourable Schoolboy[61]
1977, James Tait Black Memorial Prize Fiction Award for The Honourable Schoolboy[64]
1983, Japan Adventure Fiction Association Prize for The Little Drummer Girl[65]
1984, Honorary Fellow Lincoln College, Oxford[46]
1984, Mystery Writers of America Edgar Grand Master[63]
1988, Crime Writers Association Diamond Dagger Lifetime Achievement Award[66]
1988, The Malaparte Prize, Italy[46]
1990, Honorary degree, University of Exeter[67]
1990, Helmerich Award of the Tulsa Library Trust.[68]
1996, Honorary degree, University of St. Andrews[69]
1997, Honorary degree, University of Southampton[70]
1998, Honorary degree, University of Bath[55]
2005, Crime Writers Association Dagger of Daggers for The Spy Who Came in from the Cold[71]
2005, Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, France[46]
2008, honorary doctorate, University of Bern[72]
2011, Goethe Medal of the Goethe Institute[73]
20 June 2012 awarded the Honorary degree of Doctor of Letters (D.Litt) from the University of Oxford[74]
2019, Olof Palme Prize[75]