A Private Spy

John le Carr¿as a defining writer of his time.This enthralling collection letters - written to readers, publishers, film-makers and actors, politicians and public figures - reveals the playfully intelligent and unfailingly eloquent man behind the penname.
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''The symbiosis of author and editor, father and son, has resulted in a brilliant book, le Carr¿s final masterpiece'' 5*, Jake Kerridge, Sunday Telegraph
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A Private Spy spans seven decades and chronicles not only le Carr¿s own life but the turbulent times to which he was witness. Beginning with his 1940s childhood, it includes accounts of his National Service and his time at Oxford, and his days teaching the ''chinless, pointy-nosed gooseberry-eyed British lords'' at Eton. It describes his entry into MI5 and the rise of the Iron Curtain, and the flowering of his career as a novelist in reaction to the building of the Berlin Wall. Through his letters we