John le Carré's biographer Adam Sisman on the novelist's love affairs

After publishing his John le Carré biography in 2015, Adam Sisman has returned to the subject. One of the greatest novelists of the 20th century, John le Carré - who's real name is David Cornwell - died in 2020. The former spy, turned author, did not want his many love affairs in the 2015 biography, which Adam Sisman calls the truth, 'but not the whole truth'. Adam Sisman's new book The Secret Life of John le Carré identifies 11 women le Carré had affairs with, in the first 30 years of his marriage with wife Jane Cornwell. He writes that le Carré's pursuit of women 'was a key to unlock his fiction'.