Carmen Callil, the publisher and writer who championed female writers and transformed the English literary canon, died of leukaemia on Monday, October 17, 2022, at the age of 84 in London.
Her agency RCW announced. RCW called her “an incomparable and fiercely loyal friend who touched the hearts and lives of so many”.
The agency said: “As well as an outstanding editorial eye, she had a genius for marketing and publicity and an amazing visual sensibility – the original green spines of Virago are still prevalent today.”
Bea Hemming, deputy publishing director of Jonathan Cape, said: “We are deeply saddened to learn of the death of our author Carmen Callil.
All of us in publishing, and all of us who love books, owe a debt to her publishing genius, and we are immensely proud at Cape to count her as one of our authors
She was a trailblazer, an inspiration, a life force, a brilliantly determined researcher and writer, and a loyal friend. We will miss her enormously.” She is survived by her brother Julian. Another brother and a sister predeceased her.