George Braziller Publisher of Fresh Literary Voices, Dies at 101

By ROBERT D. McFadden , New York Times, MARCH 17, 2017

 

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George Braziller in an undated photograph. He was known for prioritizing literary quality over profits. Credit Gloria Norris Pomeranz

George Braziller, whose small, independent publishing house introduced Americans to groundbreaking novelists, poets and new voices from abroad, including those of Jean-Paul Sartre and Orhan Pamuk, and the works of 20th-century and classical artists in fine reprints, died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 101.

His death, at the Mary Manning Walsh Home, was confirmed by his son Michael Braziller, the publisher and editorial director of the publishing house George Braziller Inc.

In a 2015 memoir, “Encounters: My Life in Publishing,” Mr. Braziller recalled his century of contrasts: a son of Russian immigrants and a high school dropout, whose father died before he was born and whose mother sold old clothes from a pushcart. Yet in 56 years in publishing, he found fame and a glamorous world of friendships with Arthur Miller, Marilyn Monroe, Pablo Picasso and a host of major poets and novelists.

For serious writers, Mr. Braziller was that rare New York publisher seemingly more dedicated to literary quality than profits. Starting in 1955, he searched for offbeat, often unknown talents with original ideas for fiction, nonfiction, poetry and short stories. He found them in Europe, Africa, New Zealand and Australia. Many had already been published abroad, but he brought them out in English for American audiences.

 

Mr. Braziller’s most enduring publishing relationship was with New Zealand’s Janet Frame. It began with her first novel, “Owls Do Cry,” which he published in 1960, and continued for 30 years with eight more novels and volumes of short stories, poetry and an autobiography.  MORE