Mehta-Filter
December 31, 2019 7:31 AM   Subscribe

Sonny Mehta, Visionary Head of Alfred A. Knopf, Dies at 77 [NYT/AP]

Under Mehta’s leadership, six of Knopf’s writers were awarded Nobel Prizes – Kazuo Ishiguro, Alice Munro, Orhan Pamuk, Imre Kertész, V S Naipaul, and Toni Morrison – with many others winning honours including Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards, and the Booker Prize. At Knopf, Mehta published novelists including Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, John Banville, Julian Barnes, Michael Crichton, James Ellroy, Richard Flanagan, Yaa Gyasi, P D James, Stieg Larsson, Gabriel García Márquez, Cormac McCarthy, Haruki Murakami, Jo Nesbø, Michael Ondaatje, Anne Tyler, and John Updike; as well as world leaders including Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, and other non-fiction writers, including Joan Didion and Nora Ephron. When Knopf and Doubleday were united to form a new publishing group in 2009, other writers came under his direction, including Margaret Atwood, Dan Brown, John Grisham, and Kevin Kwan. [The Bookseller: Sonny Mehta dies aged 77]
Scroll.in: Why Sonny Mehta (1942-2019) was often called the ‘best publisher in the world’
posted by chavenet (18 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Jason Robert Brown fans mourn.
posted by thejoshu at 7:37 AM on December 31, 2019 [2 favorites]


He did change that lyric in the more recent recordings.
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 8:30 AM on December 31, 2019 [1 favorite]


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posted by wotsac at 9:36 AM on December 31, 2019


📚.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 9:38 AM on December 31, 2019 [1 favorite]


His biography is that of a classical third culture kid, Dr. Norma McCaig's "global nomad" - not unlike Obama, another charismatic man with his words.
posted by Mrs Potato at 9:48 AM on December 31, 2019 [2 favorites]


He died childless and alone?
posted by Mrs Potato at 9:53 AM on December 31, 2019


Not sure if he was childless. He had family who loved him as well as lots of colleagues who cherished him who are paying tribute to him (including in the post links), so he definitely was not alone in spirit.

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posted by sallybrown at 10:00 AM on December 31, 2019 [2 favorites]


I left Columbia and I don't regret it
I wrote a book and Sonny Mehta read it
My heart's been stolen
My ego's swollen
I just keep rollin' along

Jason Robert Brown - The last five years
posted by Baldons at 10:43 AM on December 31, 2019 [1 favorite]


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posted by gudrun at 10:57 AM on December 31, 2019


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posted by HandfulOfDust at 10:58 AM on December 31, 2019


A true champion of writers and a real mensch.

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posted by gwint at 11:52 AM on December 31, 2019 [1 favorite]


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Do read that last article linked above - very interesting perspective on the man from one of his mentees.
posted by peacheater at 3:47 PM on December 31, 2019 [3 favorites]


Also, how is it that I'm Indian, apparently have read a very large chunk of his best known writers and have not heard about this man until now? Sad that it had to be through his obituary but glad to learn belatedly of someone behind so many of my favorite reads of the last two decades.
posted by peacheater at 3:55 PM on December 31, 2019 [2 favorites]




I found this 1993 Esquire profile of him to be much juicier (though perhaps less laudatory) than any of the current coverage - great insight into the paranoia and pushback he experienced when he first joined Knopf.
posted by peacheater at 5:25 PM on December 31, 2019 [4 favorites]


thanks peacheater, that is really eye opening
posted by Mrs Potato at 4:45 AM on January 1, 2020 [2 favorites]


Whenever I hear a publisher say I care only about the books, sales and marketing don’t count, I think to myself, you’re no publisher.

The revolution in the design of American book covers that began in the late eighties was led by a legendary murderer's row at Knopf: Carol Carson, Chip Kidd, Barbara deWilde and Archie Ferguson. It continued for decades with Peter Mendelsund, Gabriele Wilson, Oliver Munday, Kelly Blair, and so many others, all of whom would credit Mehta for making it all possible. He was an amazing talent spotter in every category, including art direction.
posted by How the runs scored at 2:30 PM on January 1, 2020 [1 favorite]


Richard Russo:
In fact, I think that’s what I’ll remember most about Sonny, the impression he so often managed to convey: not just that the world needed to be a kinder, fairer, better place than it was, but also that he might somehow be partly to blame, that he’d been aware of the world’s imperfections for some time now and meaning to do something about them, but it had somehow slipped his mind and so, as a result, here we were with no choice but to genuflect before its ugliness. In a world where far too many people refuse to take responsibility even for what is clearly their fault, here was a man who felt responsible when he wasn’t. A man, in other words, whose moral imagination could be counted on. The kind of man you’d be pleased to give your book to when you yourself couldn’t make it any better.
posted by hototogisu at 8:47 PM on January 1, 2020 [2 favorites]


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