Pearson leaves Fourth Estate after 26 years following redundancy process

Nicholas Pearson is leaving his role as publishing director at Fourth Estate following a redundancy process. 

Pearson joined the publisher in 1996 after short stints at Orion and Faber & Faber.

For nearly 20 years he has edited and published Hilary Mantel, twice winner of the Booker Prize for her Wolf Hall trilogy. He was also Doris Lessing’s editor for the last years of her writing life, and has published acclaimed writers including Jonathan Franzen, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Alan Garner, whose novel Treacle Walker has just been longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize.  

Other authors he has worked with include David Baddiel, Philip Hensher, Joseph O’Neill, Michela Wrong, Alexander Masters, Tash Aw, Tabitha Lasley, Kathryn Hughes, Hugo Hamilton, Aida Edemariam and the Ravenmaster of the Tower of London. Three of Pearson’s writers, Philip Hoare, Lucy Hughes-Hallett and, most recently, Craig Brown, have won the Baillie Gifford Prize in the past 12 years. 

He said: “Working for all of these writers, and the many others not mentioned, has been the greatest privilege of my life. I will miss them, and wish them and my colleagues success in the future.” 

David Roth-Ey, executive publisher at Fourth Estate and William Collins, said: “I want to thank Nicholas for his outstanding contribution, over nearly three decades, to Fourth Estate and his authors, we wish him every success for the future.” 

He can be contacted at nppbrixton@gmail.com and 07920 788071.