A week in Congo: John le Carré’s relationship with Africa

This talk delves into the time Michela Wrong spent with le Carré in the lakeside town of Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo, which served as a lesson in the art of observation – at which David excelled – while also showing a young writer the difference between the fiction and the non-fiction writing approach. But the book which resulted - The Mission Song - betrayed a certain unease on the writer’s part when it came to matters African, Wrong argues, an unease that characterises all his African novels.