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Life in the swamp

Plumbing the depths of John le Carré’s posthumous novel
by
January–February 2022, no. 439

Silverview by John le Carré

Viking, $32.99 pb, 208 pp

Life in the swamp

Plumbing the depths of John le Carré’s posthumous novel
by
January–February 2022, no. 439
British author John le Carré (Christian Charisius/dpa/Alamy)
British author John le Carré (Christian Charisius/dpa/Alamy)

Writing in The New York Times on 15 December 2020, three days after John le Carré’s death, Philippe Sands, genocide scholar and professor of law at University College London, recounted a 1962 encounter in Vienna between his friend (Sands knew Le Carré by his birth name, David Cornwell) and the famous Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal. Cornwell had asked Wiesenthal how he could continue to live in the city, given Vienna’s history of anti-Semitism. Wiesenthal replied: ‘If you are studying the disease you have to live in the swamp.’

Morag Fraser reviews 'Silverview' by John le Carré

Silverview

by John le Carré

Viking, $32.99 pb, 208 pp