Which war's humanitarian crisis does the novel calls attention to where the novel is set against the backdrop of chaotic East Congo and the author has worked for both the Security Service and the Secret Intelligent Service?
John le Carré David John Moore Cornwell (born 19 October 1931), known by the pseudonym John le Carré ( ), is a British author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and the 1960s, he worked for both the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service, and began writing novels under his pen name. His third novel, "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" (1963), became an international best-seller and remains one of his best-known works. Following the success of this novel, he left MI6 to become a full-time author.
Hilary La Fontaine Hilary Dawn La Fontaine (19 October 1937 – 24 September 2012) was a Kenyan-born British intelligence officer and secretary for the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). The daughter of a army officer and colonial civil servant, she was educated in Kenya before moving to England to train a secretary. La Fontaine joined the SIS in 1967 and undertook her first missions in Africa. She became the personal assistant to the chief of the service in 1974 and later transferred to the SIS's department at the centre of the Cold War to support its operations behind the Iron Curtain. La Fontaine accepted a posting at the British Embassy in Hanoi six years later, becoming the sole regular Western source in Communist Vietnam. She returned to London in 1982 to the posting of the SIS's secretarial branch and retired twelve years later to take up her hobbies and two academical posts.