John le Carré

Biography/bibliography in: "Contemporary Authors". New Revision Series, Vol. 132, pp. 96-103 (as David Cornwell). Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2005.

Former President George W. Bush is a fan of le Carré's novels, despite the fact that during Bush's presidency (2001-2009), le Carré declared publicly that he was disgusted with what he called the "Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld disaster of the last eight years", referring specifically to the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Specifically, right before the U.S. invaded Iraq, le Carré wrote an article titled "The United States of America has gone mad".

He was the son of Olive Moore (Glassey) and Ronald Thomas Archibald Cornwell. His novel "A Perfect Spy" (1986) deals with his special relationship with his father. John's uncle was Alec Glassey, a Liberal MP for East Dorset, from 1929 to 1931, and his maternal grandfather, The Rev. William Glassey, was a Congregational minister.

Being a member of MI6 when he wrote his first novel, "Call for the Dead" (1961) in Hamburg, it necessitated the use of a nom de plume, by which he is now commonly known.

From 1956 to 1958, he taught at Eton and from 1959 to 1964, he was a member of the British Foreign Service as second secretary at British Embassy in Bonn, and then, as Politician Consul in Hamburg.

His half-brother Rupert Howard Cornwell, acclaimed journalist in Washington, Rome and Moscow and author (God's Banker) was born 22 February 1946 and died 31 March 2017.

John le Carré was born in Poole, Dorset in England on 19 October, 1931. He went to Sherborne School and, later, studied German literature for one year at University of Bern. Later, he went to Lincoln College, Oxford and graduated in Modern Languages.