The secret heart : John Le Carré : an intimate memoir / Suleika Dawson.

Even after he left his former career as a British spy and agent runner during the height of the Cold War, John le Carré still pursued a secret life, not just in the labyrinthine intrigue and double-dealing of his novels, but also in his personal involvements. He guarded the secrets of his private life with fierce determination, fending off would-be biographers for many decades. It was not until his ninth decade that he finally relented and permitted his full life story to be written. But even then, there was still one element that he insisted be excluded: the women. Despite being married for almost all of his adult life, le Carré also had a number of secret affairs. They were always intense, often dramatic and sometimes even tragic, yet none was destined to last more than a few months. There was one relationship, however, that was of an entirely different order; one great love affair that withstood the test of time; just one woman in all his life whom le Carré took into the innermost sanctum of both his writing and his heart. The Secret Heart is the account of Suleika Dawson's enduring love affair with John Le Carré. A thoughtful, artfully written and intimate biography, the book aims to shed a new light on one of the greatest British writers of the 20th Century and offer an alternative measure of the man over the literary legend.