The Pigeon Tunnel

The Sunday Times no. 1 memoir now in paperbackThe Pigeon Tunnel, John le Carre's memoir and his first work of non-fiction, is a thrilling journey into the worlds of his 'secret sharers' - the men and women who inspired some of his most enthralling novels. From terrifying meetings with Yasser Arafat in war-torn Beirut to brilliantly observed encounters with the great figures of 20th century film, from Stanley Kubrick to Alec Guinness. The reader is swept along not just by the chilling winds of the Cold War or by the author's frightening journeys into places of terrible violence but, most importantly, by the author's inimitable voice.In this astonishing work we see our world, both public and private, through the eyes of one of the world's greatest writers.

Fascinating, important, pithy. Anyone interested in le Carré and his significant contribution to the literature of the 20th and 21st centuries will want to read these engaging meanderings through his life and career.He has plenty to say about Kim Philby, the movie business, fellow spooks and Russian defectors, encounters with the great and good, and his intrepid travels to research his novels -- William Boyd Guardian
Vintage le Carré ... [he] remains a magician of plot and counter-plot, a master storyteller Observer
John le Carré is as recognizable a writer as Dickens or Austen Financial Times
When I was under house arrest I was helped by the books of John le Carré ... they were a journey into the wider world ... These were the journeys that made me feel that I was not really cut off from the rest of humankind Aung San Suu Kyi
No other writer has charted - pitilessly for politicians but thrillingly for readers - the public and secret histories of his times Guardian
A smashing read -- Richard Davenport-Hines Wall Street Journal
Offers thrills of recognition as le Carré's archetypes spring to life... The 84-year old novelist discards extended narrative and writes in elegiac fragments with linking harmonies, like the late works of that other German Romantic, Beethoven -- John Gapper Financial Times
Exceptionally well-turned and enjoyable -- David Sexton Evening Standard
Grippingly written, it is revealing in ways the author never intended it to be Sunday Telegraph
Cagey, clever, revealing Daily Telegraph
le Carré is a master of the art... fascinatingly readable The Times
Frank and fascinating Daily Express
The Pigeon Tunnel is a delight... a collection of highly polishes oddments from a life, assembled to entertain and inform...fabulously funny Radio Times
A snapshot of a story that is, truly, as extraordinary as any of his fiction Daily Mail
For me The Pigeon Tunnel just confirms the enigma... extremely humorous... at no point do I feel that I knew one tiny bit more than he wants me to know -- Susanne Bier, director of The Night Manager
He has written an uproarious, darkly poignant and precious book -- James Naughtie New Statesman
A beautiful book. The great glory of it is it comes close to unlocking the central mystery of le Carré -- Tony Parsons
As enthralling as his fiction Woman and Home
Le Carré is such a good writer . . . Though urbane and detached, there is rage simmering not far below the surface of both le Carré and his new book. But then, nothing, absolutely nothing, is what it seems Daily Mail
A deeply personal and touching account of le Carré's life ... it has undeniable power Prospect
Explosive Daily Mail
le Carré's The Pigeon Tunnel is exquisite -- Hugh Laurie
I savoured the gravelly, quietly insistent voice of a master storyteller examining his own life -- Michela Wrong The Spectator
the entertaining recollections of a raconteur -- Neil McCormick Telegraph
Elusive and frank and witty by turns, the spy master gives away just as much of himself as he wants to in The Pigeon Tunnel, tracing the story of his life through his walk-on parts in the history and mythology of the cold war, and the shape-shifting discipline of his imagination -- Tim Adams Guardian Biographies of the Year

John le Carre was born in 1931. For six decades, he wrote novels that came to define our age. The son of a confidence trickster, he spent his childhood between boarding school and the London underworld. At sixteen he found refuge at the university of Bern, then later at Oxford. A spell of teaching at Eton led him to a short career in British Intelligence (MI5&6). He published his debut novel, Call for the Dead, in 1961 while still a secret servant. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, secured him a worldwide reputation, which was consolidated by the acclaim for his trilogy Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People. At the end of the Cold War, le Carre widened his scope to explore an international landscape including the arms trade and the War on Terror. His memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel, was published in 2016 and the last George Smiley novel, A Legacy of Spies, appeared in 2017. He died on 12 December 2020. His posthumous novel Silverview was published in 2021.

'Out of the secret world I once knew I have tried to make a theatre for the larger worlds we inhabit. First comes the imagining, then the search for the reality.' 'A master of the art . . . Enigma is the taste in the mouth that this fascinatingly readable book leaves us with' John Sutherland, The Times 'Recounted with the storytelling lan of a master raconteur - by turns dramatic and funny, charming, tart and melancholy. The book provides insights into the quicksilver transactions between art and life performed by le Carr in his fiction. Filled with wonderfully drawn portraits of writers, spies, politicians, war reporters and actors who possess a palpable physicality and verve' New York Times 'A story that is, truly, as extraordinary as any of his fiction' Daily Mail 'A fascinating and important book' William Boyd, Guardian 'Le Carr's voice - that wry parcel of the familiar and the formal, always attuned to pace - is gripping whatever the tale, and his eye for human detail is as sharp in fact as it is in fiction' Sunday Telegraph

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