Background

Andre Schiffrin was born on June 12, 1935, in Paris, France. He was a son of Jacques and Simone Schiffrin. His father was a Russian émigré, who co-founded and ran the prestigious Editions Pléiade until the anti-Jewish laws of the Vichy regime forced the family to flee – aided by their friend André Gide – to New York.

Education

In 1957 Andre Schiffrin received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University. In 1959 he obtained a Master of Arts degree from Cambridge University.

Career

From 1959 to 1963 Andre Schiffrin was an editor of the New American Library in New York. In 1961 he was invited to join Pantheon, which had just been bought by Random House. He arrived the following year and almost immediately edited his first major success, Gunter Grass's The Tin Drum. He became editor-in-chief in 1963 and managing director in 1969.

Under his leadership, Pantheon published EP Thompson's The Making Of The English Working Class and David Wyman's The Abandonment Of The Jews. Schiffrin also championed the works of (among others) Eric Hobsbawm, Boris Pasternak, Marguerite Duras, George Kennan, Art Spiegelman, Michel Foucault, Gunnar Myrdal, Simone de Beauvoir, Noam Chomsky, and Studs Terkel.

In 1980 Pantheon was sold to S.I. Newhouse, owner of Conde Nast. In an apparent disagreement with C.E.O. Alberto Vitale over the profitability of Pantheon titles, Schiffrin resigned from Pantheon on March 15, 1990; eight other editors followed him. Approximately 350 writers, editors, and others protested the new leadership in front of Random House offices. Novelist Kurt Vonnegut was among them. His forced resignation from Pantheon in 1990 received extensive attention from the literary community as well as the media. In March 2000, the Small Press Center honored Schiffrin with the Poor Richard’s Award. Schiffrin has taught at Yale University and at the New School University. He served on the boards of the New York Civil Liberties Union and the New York Council for the Humanities.

Immediately after his resignation, Schiffrin began drafting plans with Diane Wachtell, also a former Pantheon editor, to open the New Press, a not-for-profit organization that would embody the publishing ideals they believed Pantheon and Random House had abandoned.

The New Press opened in 1992, receiving funding from thirteen grant foundations. Initial backers included the MacArthur Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The City University of New York donated the Manhattan press’ office space, and W. W. Norton distributed for the fledgling house. Unlike most houses, the New Press sought to publish educational materials. Schiffrin also chose to market his press nontraditionally: publicizing in libraries, community groups, and schools.

The Cold War and the University: Toward an Intellectual History of the Postwar Years is a collection of essays edited by Schiffrin and published in 1997 by the New Press. Some of its writers include Noam Chomsky, Ira Katznelson, Richard Lewontin, David Montgomery, Immanuel Wallenstein, and Howard Zinn.

Schiffrin was inspired to write his 2007 memoir, A Political Education: Coming of Age in Paris and New York, while in Paris organizing the publication of his father's letters to writer André Gide.

Achievements

• André Schiffrin became known for publishing literary fiction and serious nonfiction by such distinguished European authors as Gunter Grass, Michel Foucault, and Simon de Beauvoir. He also published such notable American authors and thinkers as Noam Chomsky, James Loewen, Studs Terkel, and Art Speigelman.

Works

More photos

• book

  • A Political Education: Coming of Age in Paris and New York

    (Beginning with the family’s dramatic escape to Casablanca...)

    2007
  • Words & Money

    (Ten years after the publication of The Business of Books,...)

    2010
  • The Business of Books: How the International Conglomerates Took Over Publishing and Changed the Way We Read

    (Post-war American publishing has been ruthlessly transfor...)

    2000
  • Le contrôle de la parole 2005
  • L'argent et les mots 2010

Politics

Andre Schiffrin opposed both the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and the United States war in Vietnam.

Views

By his own admission, André Schiffrin paid only intermittent attention to the bottom line, believing that the value of literature could not be measured by immediate financial returns. Instead, Schiffrin sought to draw attention to writers and ideas that could have a lasting effect on the culture. He published the works of French historian and philosopher Michel Foucault, for instance, long before Foucault’s books became popular in college classrooms.

Membership

Andre Schiffrin was a member of the New York Council for the Humanities, New York Civil Liberties Union, Smithsonian Institute Council, Phi Beta Kappa. He was one of the founders of Students for a Democratic Society.

Connections

On June 14, 1961, Andre Schiffrin married Maria Elena de la Iglesia. They had two children: Anya, Natalia.

Father:

Jacques Schiffrin

Mother:

Simone Schiffrin

Spouse:

Maria Elena de la Iglesia

Daughter:

Anya Schiffrin

Daughter:

Natalia Schiffrin

son-in-law:

Joseph Stiglitz

son-in-law:

Philippe Sands

Friend:

André Gide

colleague:

Diane Wachtell

André Schiffrin and Diane Wachtell founded The New Press.

References

• Contemporary Authors
  2010