Nick Harkaway

I actually decided not to.

We had this conversation running inside the family because when we inherited the estate, the literary estate, we inherited an obligation to try to keep the books read, to keep the name alive, but more than anything else, to keep the books in circulation and so on.

And in this moment...

the way that you do that is by focusing attention on them through adaptations through new material through essentially commercial projects so the conversation we were having was you know what can we do to to put the books back in everybody's mind how do we how do we fulfill this obligation and the obvious thing is you need a new book so i had a list in my head of people who would be amazing

at writing a new george smiley novel and and i had decided i wasn't going to suggest i should do it i had firm reasons why i wouldn't and we were having the meeting and my brother simon said so um before we get started there's a really it's quite a compelling logic that it should be you and i was like yeah i know uh and he said uh no but i mean i'm asking you you know will you do it and

In that moment, all the reasons why I wouldn't, it's incredibly challenging.

It's this extraordinary piece of 20th century literary history.

It's this, it's that.

All these things became the reasons why I would.

Oh, yeah.

And I mean not past tense either.

It's still daunting.

It's still daunting.

And it'll be daunting after the book comes out.

It'll probably be daunting for the rest of my life.

Yeah.

No, it's huge.

But it's also – but again, that's why it's worth doing.

You don't do things that are safe.

You do things that are scary.