Vale John Le Carre

His output continued to be prolific with a 1989 novel, The Russia House, marking the end of the Cold War, and the reappearance of George Smiley in The Secret Pilgrim in 1991. The 1996 novel, Tailor of Panama was inspired by the Graham Greene story, Our Man in Havana, while The Constant Gardener, published in 2000, saw him switch his attention corruption in Africa. In 2003 he joined a number of writers attacking the US led invasion of Iraq in an essay entitled, The United States of America Has Gone Mad. "How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America's anger from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history", he wrote. His remarks probably contributed to accusations of anti-American bias in his 2004 book Absolute Friends, an examination of the lives of two radicals from 1960s America, coming to terms with advancing age. In 2006 his 20th novel, Mission Song, detailed the sometimes complex relationships between business and politics in the Congo. Notably self-disparaging about his own achievements he consistently refused honours, insisting that there would never be a Sir David Cornwell. "A good writer is an expert on nothing except himself", he once said. "And on that subject, if he is wise, he holds his tongue". Le Carre reportedly turned down an honour from Queen Elizabeth II — though he accepted Germany’s Goethe Medal in 2011 — and said he did not want his books considered for literary prizes. In later years he was a vocal critic of the government of Tony Blair and its decision — based partly on hyped-up intelligence — to go to war in Iraq, and criticised what he saw as the betrayals of the post-World War II generation by successive British governments. “The changes that I was promised since I was about 14 — I remember being told when Clement Atlee became prime minister and (Winston) Churchill was slung out after the war that that would be the end of the [private] school system and the monarchy,” he said, in 2008. “How can we have achieved the poverty gap that we have in this country? It’s simply unbelievable.” In 1954, le Carre married Alison Sharp, with whom he had three sons before they divorced in 1971. In 1972 he married Valerie Eustace, with whom he had a son, the novelist Nick Harkaway. Although he had a home in London, le Carre spent much of his time near Land’s End, England’s southwesternmost tip, in a clifftop house overlooking the sea. He was, he said, a humanist but not an optimist. “Humanity — that’s what we rely on. If only we could see it expressed in our institutional forms, we would have hope then,” he told the AP. “I think the humanity will always be there. I think it will always be defeated.”