The pigeon tunnel : stories from my life / John Le Carré.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Le Carré, John, 1931-2020, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Le Carré, John, 1931-2020.

Le Carré, John.

Novelists, English--20th century--Biography.

Novelists, English.

Spy stories--Authorship.

Spy stories.

Espionage.

Espionage--Biography.

Cold War--Biography.

Cold War.

Genre:

Biographies.

Autobiographies.

Physical Description:

vii, 310 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York, New York : Viking, [2016]

Summary:

From his years serving in British Intelligence during the Cold War, to a career as a writer that took him from war-torn Cambodia to Beirut on the cusp of the 1982 Israeli invasion to Russia before and after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, le Carré has always written from the heart of modern times. In this, his first memoir, le Carré is as funny as he is incisive, reading into the events he witnesses the same moral ambiguity with which he imbues his novels. Whether he's writing about the parrot at a Beirut hotel that could perfectly mimic machine gun fire or the opening bars of Beethoven's Fifth; visiting Rwanda's museums of the unburied dead in the aftermath of the genocide; celebrating New Year's Eve 1982 with Yasser Arafat and his high command; interviewing a German woman terrorist in her desert prison in the Negev; listening to the wisdoms of the great physicist, dissident, and Nobel Prize winner Andrei Sakharov; meeting with two former heads of the KGB; watching Alec Guinness prepare for his role as George Smiley in the legendary BBC TV adaptations of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People; or describing the female aid worker who inspired the main character in The Constant Gardener, le Carré endows each happening with vividness and humor, now making us laugh out loud, now inviting us to think anew about events and people we believed we understood.

"From his years serving in British Intelligence during the Cold War to a career as a writer that took him from war-torn Cambodia to Beirut on the cusp of the 1982 Israeli invasion to Russia before and after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, John Le Carré has always written from the heart of modern times. In this, his highly anticipated memoir, Le Carré is as funny as he is incisive, reading into the events he witnesses the same moral ambiguity with which he imbues his novels."-- Dust jacket.

Contents:

Don't be beastly to your Secret Service

Dr Globke's laws

Official visit

Fingers on the trigger

To whomsoever it may concern

Wheels of British justice

Ivan Serov's defection

A legacy

The innocence of Murat Kurnaz

Going out into the field

Bumping into Jerry Westerby

Lonely in Vientiane

Theatre of the Real: Dances with Arafat

Theatre of the Real: The Villa Brigitte

Theatre of the Real: A question of guilt

Theatre of the Real: Terms of endearment

The Soviet knight is dying inside his armour

The Wild East Moscow 1993

Blood and treasure

The biggest bears in the garden

Among the Ingush

Joseph Brodsky's prize

The wrong horse's mouth

His brother's keeper

Quel Panama!

Under deep cover

Hunting for warlords

Richard Burton needs me

Alec Guinness

Lost masterpieces

Bernard Pivot's necktie

Lunching with prisoners

Son of the author's father

To Reggie with thanks

The most wanted man

Stephen Spender's credit card

Advice to an aspiring novelist

The last official secret.

Theatre of the Real : dances with Arafat

Theatre of the Real : the Villa Brigitte

Theatre of the Real : a question of guilt

Theatre of the Real : terms of endearment

The Wild East : Moscow 1993

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 309-310).

Local Notes:

Athenaeum copy: Sargent fund bookplate.

ISBN:

9780735220775

0735220778

OCLC:

945483017