The author David Cornwall, more famously known by his pen name, John le Carré. Photo is being shared for the purposes of illustration only and will be removed if requested by the owner of the original photo; this site operates as a nonprofit clearinghouse for information on policy issues related to adoption and adoptee rights.
The great British novelist David Cornwall, known to world by the pen name John le Carré, died of complications from pneumonia on Dec. 12, 2020, at the age of 89.
Throughout my entire adult life, le Carré has been a frequent visitor to my thoughts as I have reflected upon my life as an adoptee.
I thought about him again this week, when my former work colleague told me they were an adoptee. This took me like a storm, because this former work associate never betrayed any signs of that status during our two years of closely working together during the pandemic.
This revelation struck me that they were, in my view, like me—part actor, part “mole.” Le Carré popularized that term to describe those who burrow deeply into another country’s intelligence services to serve another master.
I again realized that my former coworker, like me, was an accomplished master at hiding this most important aspect of their identity as we navigated our public worlds much the ways spies do, with hidden realities and public faces that never betray our true allegiances and actual identities.
Why le Carré matters to my adoptee persona
Foremost I remain a lifelong fan of le Carré because of his great skills as a writer.
I also admire him because we share a few core things in common and because of his ability to give shape to places of ambiguity that so perfectly matches my own worldview.
… My affection for le Carré’s writing stems from being born into a world that oddly matches the spaces he painted with words for decades.
In my case, I am an adoptee, recruited to the service of adoption as an infant, with a fake birth certificate and new name and new family. (See my guide comparing le Carré’s spy craft jargon with my own adoption jargon for a quick comparison.)