Volume 48, Number 10 · June 21, 2001
On Jérôme Lindon, 1926–2001
By Richard Seaver
He was tall, thin, with a hairline that had so receded that only two white, barely discernible tufts remained above his prominent ears. His dark, flashing eyes fixed on you as if you were the only person in the universe, and his nervous energy, even in the forty-ninth year of our friendship, was so ill-contained that he constantly shifted in his chair behind a disconcertingly clean desk. He was, without question, the most prestigious French publisher of the second half of the twentieth century and, arguably, the most important publisher in the Western world. And yet, since 1948, when he assumed the direction of the fledgling publishing house Les Éditions de Minuit (Midnight Press), Jérôme Lindon brought out no more than fifteen to twenty books a year. In half a century the people on his payroll never exceeded the magic number of ten.
Feature, 2895 words
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