The Innocent (1990) is in many ways a simple spy novel, a thriller written in straightforward prose. When published it was McEwan's most successful novel to that date. The novel is set in postwar Berlin at the time of “Operation Gold” (1955-6), the attempt by the British and Americans to tunnel into the Soviet sector and infiltrate communist communication systems. In this novel, as well as focussing on the actual Berlin Tunnel built by MI6 and the CIA, McEwan breaks the fictional frame by introducing the figure of George Blake, the double-agent who, in real life, betrayed Operation Gold before it started. The book is concerned with the postwar world (and the world of McEwan's childhood) and the struggle, after the war, between

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Published 08 January 2001

Citation: Childs, Peter. "The Innocent". The Literary Encyclopedia. 8 January 2001.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=505, accessed 9 February 2010.]