Detective Cornwell Speaks

What excellent timing!

The Belmond El Encanto just launched a cinematic speaker series which happily coincided with the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. The series featured Ojai-based scriptwriter and producer Stephen Cornwell, son of prolific spy novelist David Cornwell, who used the pseudonym John le Carré when he wrote such bestsellers as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy.

Stephen, with his former venture capitalist brother Simon, founded the Ink Factory, bringing their father’s characters to film and TV in such features as The Constant Gardener and The Night Manager.

“Espionage is always very compelling,” he told the 50 guests, attending the first event in the series, which will take place every four months. “We all lead secret lives in some way or other. There is an increasing global audience. In due course we plan to do one in Chinese!”

I used to know the celebrated author quite well given he lived near my Cornish cottage in the village of St. Buryan and we would see each other at the local pub, The Logan Rock in Treen.

The talk was moderated by Andrew Gumbel of The Guardian, whose former editor Alan Rusbridger, I worked with at the Cambridge Evening News in the ‘70s.

A small world indeed…