It was hearing that many publishers have pretty much given up editing and possibly reading too, along with news of the Parthenon being closed, that reminded me of the last time I had been in Greece, and of who I had met there . . .
I had been working as an editor at André Deutsch for thirty years when an invitation arrived from the Greek Ministry of Culture to a forum on translations. Like all unsolicited mail for editorial it had come to me, but I could hardly take up the invitation as I was on the brink of retiring. By the time of the conference I would have my bus pass.
To my surprise, when I brought the letter down to the next editorial meeting, no one was interested in going. To decline the invitation seemed ungracious, to say the least, and, deciding it was better for them to have me than nobody, I accepted and, after re-reading the Greek novel I had managed to get onto our list: Alexis Parnis’s delightful, absurdist The Proof Reader, I located a Greek-language bookshop, not far from where I live but, until then, unknown to me. Not long after, I was on my way to Delphi.
It was not the first time I had been there, but things had changed. Before, it had been possible to walk in among the ruins, now fenced off against visitors, and my then-husband and I had stayed in a kind of shepherd’s hut. Now I was to be housed in great comfort and though not one of the six of us – for that was the entire number of our delegation – knew a word of Greek, all except me were in a position to champion the cause of modern Greek literature, above all one of the publishers among us: the shambling, untidy and generally absent Peter Owen.
Our hosts had laid on a series of lectures which, as we could see, had been well attended by previous guest nations. Mortified by the paucity of our numbers, we all, except Peter, attended every one. What he was doing I don’t know, but I do know that on the plane home, while we were all talking about the previous night’s banquet at the Royal Yacht Club in Athens – enlivened by the screeching arrival of my Greek author on a motorbike – he was quietly reading, not a fashionable novel, not the obscure Greek poet who, I believe, he came to publish (he had not been wasting his time) but Jane Austen.
There are not many publishers like him and though he could be inattentive and also late in paying royalties (one of his authors told me that he was ready to throw a brick through his window) he never gave up reading things for himself.
