“You have no idea how humiliating it was, as a boy, to suddenly have all your clothes, your toys, snatched by the bailiff. I mean we were a middle-class family, it's not as if it was happening up and down the street. It made me ashamed, I felt dirty.”

English author

John le Carré, born David John Moore Cornwell, was an English author of the 20th and 21st centuries. He is best known for his espionage novels, many of which were adapted for film or television. He worked for both MI5 and MI6 in the 1950s and 1960s, experience that shaped much of his fiction. His novels are often noted for their moral complexity and a carefully measured view of intelligence work. Near the end of his life, he became an Irish citizen.