HarperCollins snaps up memoir by le Carré’s secret muse Suleika Dawson

HarperCollins has snapped up a literary memoir by John le Carré’s secret muse and last love Suleika Dawson. 

Joel Simons, Mudlark publishing director, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, to The Secret Heart: John le Carré: An intimate Memoir from Jane Graham Maw at Graham Maw Christie. It will publish on 27th October 2022. 

The publisher described the book as “the long-awaited untold account of Suleika Dawson’s intimate relationship with the world-renowned writer and former spy”.  

It said: “Her absorbing memoir charts the story of a unique literary love affair spread out over two decades. Told with frank openness and rare insight, Suleika shares the highs and lows of her long-standing association with le Carré – David Cornwell – an intensely complex man who lived a secret life. 

“As his audiobook abridger, researcher and also his mistress, Suleika became part of his inner circle. Le Carré was a man who guarded his private life with fierce determination, fending off all would-be biographers for many decades, and it was not until his ninth decade that he finally relented and permitted his life story to be written. But there was still one element he excluded – that of the enduring love affair between le Carré and his long-time mistress, Suleika Dawson.”