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Carmen Callil, Virago founder and author, dies aged 84
Tributes have been paid to “incomparable” Virago founder and author Carmen Callil, who has died aged 84.
Callil died of leukemia at home in London on the night of 17th October, her agency RCW announced. RCW called her “an incomparable and fiercely loyal friend who touched the hearts and lives of so many”.
Born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1938, she spent most of her professional life in England. She began her publishing career as a book publicist with Panther from 1967 and then worked for firms Antony Blond and Andre Deutsch. Inspired by the feminist magazine Spare Rib and deploring a lack of representation for women writers by publishers, she came up with the idea for Virago in a pub and founded the publisher in 1973. In June this year she celebrated the publisher’s five decades at the British Library with a host of former colleagues and Virago authors.
RCW said she rediscovered a host of lost women’s classics including works by Willa Cather, Henry Handel Richardson, Elizabeth Taylor and Edith Wharton as well as bringing new writers to the list such as Maya Angelou, Margaret Atwood, Pat Barker and Helen Garner.
The agency said: “As well as an outstanding editorial eye, she had a genius for marketing and publicity and an amazing visual sensibility – the original green spines of Virago are still prevalent today.”
Chair of Virago Lennie Goodings told The Bookseller: "I am devastated that she won’t be part of the 50th celebrations next year for the imprint she loved and founded to ’change the world’. Champion of women’s writing, outspoken critic, wonderful friend and utterly unique human being. A genius, really. She broke the rules and created Virago and changed the view of women in power and women’s writing. So, so sad. She stayed in touch long after she left us – and encouraged our publishing until her end. I can’t picture a world without her careering around it. But what a life. How few of us come and change the world and she did."
In 1982 Callil went on to be the publisher of Chatto & Windus, working with writers such as A S Byatt, Angela Carter, Alan Hollinghurst, David Malouf, Toni Morrison and Marina Warner. She was also the first publisher of Hilary Mantel.
RCW said: “She was a frank and fearless champion of her authors and became one of the greatest, most influential and dynamic publishers of her day. Her campaigning zeal and feistiness ensured she never shirked a challenge nor a difficult decision, She was also generous with her expertise and nurtured a whole host of young female and male publishers instilling in them her extraordinary work ethic and her exacting standards.”
Clara Farmer, publishing director at Chatto & Windus, said: “Carmen’s gleeful spirit and her fierce love of her books and authors contributed so much to making Chatto & Windus what it is today. Thank you Carmen – how we will miss you.”
After leaving publishing, Callil had a successful career as a writer and critic. She chaired the Booker Prize in 1996 and in 1999 published with co-author Colm Toibin The Modern Library: the Best 200 books in English since 1950 (Picador). She then wrote the acclaimed Bad Faith: A Forgotten History of Family & Fatherland (Cape) in 2006 and Oh Happy Day: Those Times and These Times (Cape) in 2020.
Bea Hemming, deputy publishing director of Jonathan Cape, said: “We are deeply saddened to learn of the death of our author Carmen Callil. All of us in publishing, and all of us who love books, owe a debt to her publishing genius, and we are immensely proud at Cape to count her as one of our authors. She was a trailblazer, an inspiration, a lifeforce, a brilliantly determined researcher and writer, and a loyal friend. We will miss her enormously.”
She was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2010, won the FRSL Benson Medal in 2017 and in the same year was awarded a damehood.
Baroness Gail Rebuck, writing on behalf of Penguin Random House, has also paid tribute to Carmen Callil.
