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Article: Learning at the feet of the master of treachery; THE IoS PROFILE: John le Carre At the age of 71 the creator of George Smiley has embarked on one last mission: to lay to rest the ghost of his feckless, wife-beating father
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- February 17, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2002 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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John le Carre is apt to remember Graham Greene's dictum that
childhood is the bank balance of the writer. "I think that all
writers feel alienated,"
Le Carre says. "Most of us go back to an alienated childhood in
some way or another. I know I do."
To those who have followed closely the career of the pre-eminent
spy novelist of the Cold War era and beyond, the extraordinary forces
that shaped Le Carre's literary personality are there in the books
(some of them, anyway). But it is one thing to dress up autobiography
in the guise of fiction, quite another, for this most private of
writers, to lay before the public - as he did in a magazine article