Le Carre Sees Lift for Spy Novel in New ‘Wall’ Hunting Grounds

Author John le Carre says the holes punched through the Berlin Wall, far from dooming the espionage novel, could bring new life to fictional spies.

“If the spy novelist of today can rise to the challenge, he has got it made,” Le Carre, British master of the Cold War thriller, wrote in a copyright article in today’s Guardian newspaper.

“He can sweep away the cobwebs of a world grown old and cold and weary, dumping the obligatory baggage of the Cold War standoff, and take on any number of new hunting grounds.”

Le Carre recalled how a visit to the Wall in the early 1960s provided the inspiration for “The Spy Who Came In From The Cold,” the first in a string of bestsellers spanning nearly 30 years.

“The Wall was without doubt the most disgusting symbol of political failure I had seen and, as good luck would have it, I was looking for a book at the time. . . . Writers are nothing if not opportunists.”

Le Carre’s latest novel “The Russia House” reflects the melting of Cold War hostility between the superpowers and he expressed delight that events in East Berlin were matching fact with fiction.

“That the Wall should be coming down while my book is still around fills me with quiet joy,” he wrote.