The Little Drummer Girl Summary
John le Carré

The Little Drummer Girl Summary

Having used the Far East as the theater of his operations in previous novels, le Carre now moves into the Middle East to develop a different picture of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the terrorist escalation continues. The Little Drummer Girl narrates many bomb explosions: Bonn, Zurich, Leyden, Bad Godesberg among them, with all the immediacy of a newscast.

Le Carre has both an Israeli and a Palestinian hero, but his originality lies in showing the humanity of both sides.

In an interview with Melvin Bragg for the New York Times (1983), le Carre maintains that he "wanted to put a face on the Palestinians." His message is that "the intensity with which the Israelis defend what they have got can only be understood if one realizes the intensity with which the Palestinians resent what they have lost." Because of le Carre's sympathetic portrayal of his...

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