Bridging the Divide #12 | Georgia de Chamberet interviews publisher Philip Gywn Jones

Georgia de Chamberet interviews Philip Gwyn Jones who has extensive experience at the heart of literary publishing having started his career at the late, lamented Flamingo imprint at HarperCollins, then founding Portobello Books and merging it with Granta Books, moving on to Scribe, and since June this year, heading up the Picador imprint at Macmillan.

“You were the first British editor to offer a book contract to Jenny Erpenbeck, Ove Knausgaard, Jhumpa Lahiri, Arundhati Roy, Kathryn Schulz and Zadie Smith, amongst others. Tell us about some of your recent discoveries published by Scribe and what makes each one so special.”

“Tommy Wieringa - author of The Blessed Rita which you have published in Spring this year - is one of europe’s biggest selling authors. What is his magic ingredient?”

“As voices from the margins have become louder, influencing the political mainstream, how has fiction written from an “outsider” perspective evolved and increasingly become an identifiable genre in publishing since you began your career publishing translations?”

Presented by Georgia de Chamberet | Produced by Rupert Such