John le Carré's characters were the opposite of James Bond. Like Bond creator Ian Fleming, le Carré was a veteran British intelligence officer who wrote spy novels. But unlike Fleming's action hero, le Carré's protagonists were morally dubious actors caught up in forces they didn't understand. After all, le Carré started his own intelligence career steeped in treason, interrogating Soviet bloc defectors and snitching on communist classmates at Oxford University.
Tradecraft was published to accompany an Oxford museum exhibit of the same name, open until April 2026. It reconstructs le Carré's career through his personal papers, expert commentary, and memories from his collaborators, including journalist Michela Wrong and filmmaker Errol Morris. They take readers on a journey from Cornwall to the Congo, from Phnom Penh to Perm, Russia.
