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Bloomsbury's queen

Often referred to as the queen of publishing, Liz Calder's authors are among the world's best

Liz Calder has been involved with so many things that merit talking about, you ponder what to leave out in allotted half-hour allowed you to speak to her on her visit to India. So often addressed as queen of publishing, she does not just sport the credit of launching star authors like Salman Rushdie, Julian Barnes and Anita Brookner, but has also won undying acclaim, as the Publishing Director of Bloomsbury, for digging out inter alia J.K. Rowling of the Harry Potter series fame, and of course, for bringing back to life yesteryear artist Frida Kahlo by publishing her biography which eventually became a famous movie.

When Calder finally arrives, a little apologetic about the delay ("I was all eyes, this is my first visit to India. So I was taking it a little easy"), she but begins with one of the most successful stories of the publishing world — the birth and rise of Bloomsbury. From a tiny little space above a Chinese eatery in South London with just four people in 1986, to a "decent office" in Bloomsbury Square with an employee strength of 15, to finally its present Soho Square address with 120 workers plus the staff of its new acquisition, ANC Black.

"When one day Nigel Newton (Bloomsbury's Chairman) asked me out for lunch and showed me a meticulously made business plan for Bloomsbury, I was a little nervous. He had planned out each and every thing, how the company would look after five years. Being with a well-etched name like Jonathan Cape, it was not easy for me to roll over to a start-up," recalls Calder. But she did.

Author's trust

"We started with a lot of things that were new to the publishing world then. We made authors have more say in the jacket cover, pasted a nice picture of them on the back flap, etc. We also had an author's trust and gave away a lot of one-time money to authors when we first went public," she states.

Though Calder had hoped her Booker-winning discoveries such as Rushdie, Barnes (short-listed), Brookner and Margaret Atwood would join her at Bloomsbury, none did. "I remember Barnes telling me, not I but you are leaving me," she recollects. Instead, she was joined by authors whom she had least expected like Nadine Godimer and John Irving. "Nigel had warned me against it," she adds, flashing a smile that tells of her charm as a successful fashion model years back in Brazil. Much later, Atwood came round and joined her."I was at a book fair and someone left a little note for me which read, `Margaret Atwood would like to be published by Bloomsbury'. I saw that and ran to find Nigel."

Harry Potter

Narrating the sequence of events that led to the birth of the phenomenally successful Harry Potter series, the 68-year-old Calder says: "Ten years after starting Bloomsbury, we thought of setting up a children's book list too, to make the publishing house fully rounded. We hired a children's editor, an assistant and a marketing person." As the department was looking for new manuscripts, the assistant, Ros Delahigh, got to read a few pages of Harry Potter And The Goblet of Fire. Rowling had by then been rejected by many publishers. "Ross became so impressed by it that she hurried her colleagues to a small round table and passed around pages of it to go through. And she wouldn't stop talking about it and we had to tell her to shut up," shares Calder. And it was by dint of the word-of-mouth campaign that the book was marketed.

Having spent her early days in Sao Paulo as her first husband was posted there, Brazil holds a special place in Calder's heart. She now spends three months in Parati, a small fishing village used to ship gold to Europe, and now the venue of her literary festival, the first of its kind in South America.

Calder bagged the Merit of Order last year from the Brazilian Government for her services towards culture.

SANGEETA BAROOAH PISHAROTY

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