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{"source_url": "https://www.theguardian.com", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/31/sonny-mehta-knopf-books-dies-77", "title": "Sonny Mehta, head of publisher Knopf, dies aged 77", "top_image": "https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/22c4d82ce712640260eaf1059f08449b42247221/0_156_1377_826/master/1377.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=390b8beb4a2ff533e9858e900325693b", "meta_img": "https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/22c4d82ce712640260eaf1059f08449b42247221/0_156_1377_826/master/1377.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=390b8beb4a2ff533e9858e900325693b", "images": ["https://phar.gu-web.net/count/pvg.gif", "https://phar.gu-web.net/count/pv.gif", "https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/22c4d82ce712640260eaf1059f08449b42247221/0_156_1377_826/master/1377.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=390b8beb4a2ff533e9858e900325693b", "https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/22c4d82ce712640260eaf1059f08449b42247221/0_156_1377_826/master/1377.jpg?width=300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=abc851ed504890a2714ba260c615774e", "https://sb.scorecardresearch.com/p?c1=2&c2=6035250&cv=2.0&cj=1&comscorekw=Books%2CPublishing%2CCulture%2CUS+news%2CWorld+news"], "movies": [], "text": "Sonny Mehta, the head of Alfred A Knopf who led one of the book world\u2019s most esteemed imprints to new heights, has died. He was 77.\n\nFrom The Big Short to Normal People: the books that defined the decade Read more\n\nMehta, who was married to the author Gita Mehta, died on Monday at his home in Manhattan. According to Knopf, the cause was complications from pneumonia.\n\n\u201cMehta\u2019s contributions to the world of letters and publishing are without precedent,\u201d a statement from the publisher read. \u201cHis exacting standards \u2013 in editorial, production, design, marketing, and publicity \u2013 were a beacon to the book industry and beyond.\u201d\n\nMehta oversaw a blend of prize-winning literature by authors including Toni Morrison and Cormac McCarthy and blockbusters including Fifty Shades of Grey and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.\n\nBearded and chain-smoking, he spoke carefully and chose wisely, helping Knopf thrive even as the industry faced the jarring changes of corporate consolidation, the demise of thousands of independent stores and the rise of e-books.\n\nAn accomplished publisher and editor since his mid-20s, he succeeded the revered Robert Gottlieb in 1987 as just the third Knopf editor-in-chief in its 72-year history. He fashioned his own record of critical and commercial success, continuing to publish celebrated authors signed by Gottlieb, including Morrison and Robert Caro, and adding talent such as Tommy Orange, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Karen Russell.\n\nKnopf also was home to some of the best-selling works in recent times. In 2008, Mehta acquired US rights to the Millennium series, a trilogy of crime fiction by a dead Swedish journalist, Stieg Larsson. It sold tens of millions of copies. In 2012, the paperback imprint Vintage won a bidding war for an explicit erotic trilogy that at the time could only be read digitally, the Fifty Shades novels by EL James.\n\nOther top sellers released under Mehta included Sheryl Sandberg\u2019s Lean In, Bill Clinton\u2019s memoir My Life and Cheryl Strayed\u2019s Wild.\n\nWhen the Center for Fiction honoured Mehta in 2018, tributes were written by Joan Didion, Haruki Murakami and Anne Tyler, who called him the \u201cFred Astaire of editing\u201d.\n\nKnopf\u2019s catalog often reflected Mehta\u2019s own broad curiosity. In a single season, the publisher might release new fiction by Morrison and Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez, crime novels by PD James and James Ellroy, poetry by Anne Carson and Philip Levine, history by John Keegan and Joseph Ellis, humour by Nora Ephron and memoirs by Katharine Hepburn and Andre Agassi.\n\nMehta allowed Caro to spend years between each instalment of his Lyndon Johnson biographies, a decades-long project that sold hundreds of thousands and brought numerous awards.\n\nMehta was born Ajai Singh Mehta, the son of Indian diplomat Amrik Singh Mehta. He graduated from Cambridge with degrees in history and English literature and needed little time to make an impact in London, helping launch the career of college friend Germaine Greer and introducing British readers to the profane Americana of Hunter S Thompson.\n\nWith Pan Books, he released works by rising authors such as Ian McEwan and Salman Rushdie while signing up Jackie Collins, Douglas Adams and other bestsellers. He was Gottlieb\u2019s choice to take over at Knopf, but still faced initial wariness from the staff.\n\n\u201cPeople \u2026 had the terrible fear that I was going to suddenly publish Jackie Collins over here and really sort of lower the tone of the place,\u201c Mehta told Publishers Weekly in 2015.\n\n\u201cI think the difference was that I probably encouraged people to market a lot more than they were in the habit of doing. I encouraged them to look at a certain type of literary fiction and see it wasn\u2019t necessarily intended for some kind of ghetto, that there was a bigger market for it.\u201d\n\nMehta survived numerous transformations at Knopf, notably the 1999 acquisition by the German conglomerate Bertelsmann AG and the 2012 merger with Penguin.\n\n\u201cOn a good day, I am still convinced I have the best job in the world,\u201d he told Vanity Fair in 2016, explaining that he had recently finished a novella by Graham Swift.\n\n\u201cI opened it and didn\u2019t know what to expect, and I read it in one sitting right here in the office, utterly mesmerised. Sometimes you find something new and you just say \u2019Wow\u2019.\u201d", "keywords": [], "meta_keywords": ["Books", "Publishing", "Culture", "US news", "World news"], "tags": [], "authors": ["Associated Press In New York"], "publish_date": "Tue Dec 31 00:00:00 2019", "summary": "", "article_html": "", "meta_description": "Mehta, who led one of the book world\u2019s most esteemed imprints to new heights, died at home in New York from complications from pneumonia", "meta_lang": "en", "meta_favicon": "https://assets.guim.co.uk/images/favicons/fee5e2d638d1c35f6d501fa397e53329/152x152.png", "meta_data": {"description": "Mehta, who led one of the book world\u2019s most esteemed imprints to new heights, died at home in New York from complications from pneumonia", "format-detection": "telephone=no", "HandheldFriendly": "True", "viewport": "width=device-width,minimum-scale=1,initial-scale=1", "apple-mobile-web-app-title": "Guardian", "application-name": "The Guardian", "msapplication-TileColor": "#052962", "theme-color": "#052962", "msapplication-TileImage": "https://assets.guim.co.uk/images/favicons/023dafadbf5ef53e0865e4baaaa32b3b/windows_tile_144_b.png", "thumbnail": "https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/22c4d82ce712640260eaf1059f08449b42247221/0_156_1377_826/master/1377.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=9acfba7eabfaaa3bf037f2626f7eeba3", "keywords": "Books,Publishing,Culture,US news,World news", "news_keywords": "Books,Publishing,Culture,US news,World news", "og": {"url": "http://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/31/sonny-mehta-knopf-books-dies-77", "image": "https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/22c4d82ce712640260eaf1059f08449b42247221/0_156_1377_826/master/1377.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=390b8beb4a2ff533e9858e900325693b", "description": "Mehta, who led one of the book world\u2019s most esteemed imprints to new heights, died at home in New York from complications from pneumonia", "type": "article", "title": "Sonny Mehta, head of publisher Knopf, dies aged 77", "site_name": "the Guardian"}, "article": {"author": "Associated Press in New York", "publisher": "https://www.facebook.com/theguardian", "section": "Books", "published_time": "2019-12-31T17:44:32.000Z", "tag": "Books,Publishing,Culture,US news,World news", "modified_time": "2019-12-31T17:44:33.000Z"}, "al": {"ios": {"url": "gnmguardian://books/2019/dec/31/sonny-mehta-knopf-books-dies-77?contenttype=Article&source=applinks", "app_store_id": 409128287, "app_name": "The Guardian"}}, "fb": {"app_id": 180444840287, "pages": 516977308337360}, "twitter": {"app": {"id": {"iphone": 409128287, "ipad": 409128287, "googleplay": "com.guardian"}, "name": {"googleplay": "The Guardian", "ipad": "The Guardian", "iphone": "The Guardian"}, "url": {"ipad": "gnmguardian://books/2019/dec/31/sonny-mehta-knopf-books-dies-77?contenttype=Article&source=twitter", "googleplay": "guardian://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/31/sonny-mehta-knopf-books-dies-77", "iphone": "gnmguardian://books/2019/dec/31/sonny-mehta-knopf-books-dies-77?contenttype=Article&source=twitter"}}, "image": "https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/22c4d82ce712640260eaf1059f08449b42247221/0_156_1377_826/master/1377.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&s=8293ac9e9be4e190826282967a61acfc", "site": "@guardian", "card": "summary_large_image", "dnt": "on"}}, "canonical_link": "https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/31/sonny-mehta-knopf-books-dies-77"} |