Book Description
like a leitmotiv through John Calder's memoirs. He has been damned by a
censorious press, by politicians, by other publishers, and by organs of the
state for publishing books on sensitive issues. Damned also for publishing
such authors as Henry Miller, William Burroughs, Alexander Trocchi and
Hubert Selby, as well as for bringing to public notice the abuses of the
armies and security forces of colonial countries.
He took on American authors who could not be published in the United States
during the McCarthy witch-hunt. He exposed the attrocities of the Algerian
and other African wars, and produced many books on British political,
social and moral issues which only a totally independent publisher could
have done.
His publishing programme contained a large proportion of the leading
writers of the 20th century, including Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco,
Luigi Pirandello, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Marguerite Duras, Heinrich Boll, and
such British authors as Howard Barker, Edward Bond, Steven Berkoff, Ann
Quin and others outside literary fiction, poetry and drama. Anecdotes
abound about Bertrand Russell, Alger Hiss, Graham Greene, J.B. Priestley,
Jo Grimond and dozens of others whom the author encountered in his
activities, both within and outside of publishing. He entered politics,
arts promotion and management, organised writers' conferences for the
Edinburgh festival and held his own literary festival in Kinrosshire.
However, the chronicle does not end there.
Born into the most conservative of establishment families, John Calder has
gone his own way - seeking out literary genius and creating a greater
awareness of the world we inhabit. His memoirs are too outspoken to make
many friends, but they will open eyes and upset apple carts. Never a saint,
Calder is as frank about his own failings as of those of others.
