John Le Carre, 1984 (photo)

John le Carré (real name David Cornwell, born 1931) Internationally acclaimed British author of espionage novels. Has himself worked for British Intelligence before becoming a full-time writer in 1964, after the success of his novel The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1963). Many of his thrillers have been made into films or television series. including The Looking Glass War (1965), Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974), Smiley's People (1979), A Perfect Spy (1986), and The Constant Gardener (2001). His novels are morally more complex and ambivalent than most thrillers and his politics usually anti-American and anti-western.