Sonny Mehta, Venerable Knopf Publisher, Is Dead at 77

In 1972, he joined Pan Books, publishing writers like Jackie Collins and Douglas Adams, who went on to become household names. He also founded the storied Picador imprint, publishing the Booker Prize winners Mr. McEwan, Mr. Rushdie, Mr. Swift, Edmund White and Julian Barnes — so many that The Times of London called his tenure “the Picador Generation.”

Determined to introduce Britons to successful American writers, he acquired works by Michael Herr, Maxine Hong Kingston, Robert Stone and others from Knopf. Visiting New York, he got to know Mr. Gottlieb, whose verdict settled the succession: “Sonny has an absolute passion for quality in books and at the same time is a brilliant commercial publisher.”

In addition to Mr. Ishiguro, Mr. Mehta published the Nobel laureates Alice Munro, Doris Lessing, Orhan Pamuk, Imre Kertesz, V.S. Naipaul, Gunter Grass, Ms. Morrison and Nadine Gordimer, and works by the winners of 29 Pulitzer Prizes and nine National Book Awards. He also published graphic novels, including a volume of Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” (1991), on the recollections of a Holocaust survivor, and Marjane Satrapi’s “Persepolis,” (2003-5), on her childhood in the Iranian Revolution.

Mr. Mehta, who had homes in London and New Delhi as well as New York, was never tempted to write a book himself.

In 2018, he received the Maxwell E. Perkins Award for lifetime achievement from the Center for Fiction.

“Reading has been a constant in my life,” he said in accepting the Perkins Award. “I have always found comfort in the confines of a book or manuscript. Reading is how I spend most of my time, is still the most joyful aspect of my day. I want to be remembered not as an editor or publisher, but as a reader.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/31/books/sonny-mehta-dead.html?emc=rss&partner=rss