John le Carré’s son has revealed ambitions to allow other writers free rein with his father’s greatest creation, opening the doors to what could become a never-ending George Smiley literary empire.
Nick Harkaway said Smiley’s morally ambiguous world of espionage and clandestine ops was rich and wide enough to justify allowing writers from outside the family to write novels based around the famously cuckolded spy who appeared in many of le Carré’s greatest novels.
Harkaway, who has already written one Smiley “continuation novel” and has another due out next year, said he had tried to “open the gates … so that other writers can, with due deference and due fearlessness, tell new stories into this same world”.
John le Carré on Hampstead Heath with Nick and their whippet
MONTY FRESCO/DAILY MAIL/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK
