Georges Borchardt is a literary agent in America; he has represented such figures as General Charles de Gaulle to Jane Fonda.

Early life

Born in Berlin in 1928, Borchardt was in France with his family when war broke out in 1939; his father died when Borchardt was a child of eleven. He spent his teenage years hiding in plain sight, as an undocumented student in Aix-en-Provence, relying on strangers to protect him after his mother and most of his family perished in concentration camps. Borchardt emigrated to the US in 1947, settling in New York.

Career

Borchardt's first job in New York was as an assistant in a literary agency specializing in foreign writers. In 1959, it was Borchardt who secured an American publisher for Elie Wiesel's ''

Night Night (also described as night time, unconventionally spelled as "nite") is the period of ambient darkness from sunset to sunrise during each 24-hour day, when the Sun is below the horizon. The exact time when night begins and ends depends ...

'', following rejection after rejection by publishers who labeled the memoir of Wiesel's internment in concentration camps too morbid for American readers. ''Night'' has sold more than six million copies in the United States alone. Borchardt is responsible for the American publication of the first works by Samuel Beckett. He also introduced to American readers major works by

Roland Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popula ...

Pierre Bourdieu Pierre Bourdieu (; 1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was a French sociologist and public intellectual. Bourdieu's contributions to the sociology of education, the theory of sociology, and sociology of aesthetics have achieved wide influence ...

Marguerite Duras Marguerite Germaine Marie Donnadieu (, 4 April 1914 – 3 March 1996), known as Marguerite Duras (), was a French novelist, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, and experimental filmmaker. Her script for the film '' Hiroshima mon amour'' (1959) e ...

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, Michel Foucault, Eugène Ionesco, Jacques Lacan,

Alain Robbe-Grillet Alain Robbe-Grillet (; 18 August 1922 – 18 February 2008) was a French writer and filmmaker. He was one of the figures most associated with the '' Nouveau Roman'' (new novel) trend of the 1960s, along with Nathalie Sarraute, Michel Butor and ...

Laurent de Brunhoff Laurent de Brunhoff (born 30 August 1925) is a French author and illustrator, known primarily for continuing the Babar the Elephant series of children's books that was created by his father, Jean de Brunhoff. Early life Brunhoff was born in Pari ...

and

Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and lit ...

. Borchardt has lectured widely on publishing. He has served on the board of International PEN and as president of th
Association of Authors' Representatives
(AAR). In 1967, Borchardt branched out on his own, establishing his New York-based literary agency, Georges Borchardt, Inc., with the assistance of his wife, Anne Bolton Borchardt. Their daughter, Valerie Borchardt, joined the agency in 1999. The Borchardt agency represents many important authors, including Elie Wiesel,

Ian McEwan Ian Russell McEwan, (born 21 June 1948) is an English novelist and screenwriter. In 2008, ''The Times'' featured him on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945" and ''The Daily Telegraph'' ranked him number 19 in its list of th ...

Jerome Charyn Jerome Charyn (born May 13, 1937) is an American writer. With nearly 50 published works over a 50-year span, Charyn has a long-standing reputation as an inventive and prolific chronicler of real and imagined American life, writing in multiple ge ...

Robert Coover Robert Lowell Coover (born February 4, 1932) is an American novelist, short story writer, and T.B. Stowell Professor Emeritus in Literary Arts at Brown University. He is generally considered a writer of fabulation and metafiction. Background ...

, and

T. C. Boyle Thomas Coraghessan Boyle, also known as T. C. Boyle and T. Coraghessan Boyle (born December 2, 1948), is an American novelist and short story writer. Since the mid-1970s, he has published sixteen novels and more than 100 short stories. He won the ...

, who once described Borchardt as "the most wonderful man who ever lived on this earth." The agency also handles the literary legacy of the estates of

Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the thr ...

, Hannah Arendt, John Gardner,

Stanley Elkin Stanley Lawrence Elkin (May 11, 1930 – May 31, 1995) was an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist. His extravagant, satirical fiction revolves around American consumerism, popular culture, and male-female relationships. Biograp ...

and

Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. He wrote nearly 50 books, both novels and non-fiction works, as well as wide-ranging essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the prominent Huxle ...

. Among the agency's more than 200 authors are eight Pulitzer Prize and five

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

winners.

Legion of Honor

On October 25, 2010, Georges Borchardt was awarded the insignia of Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, France's highest award."France Honors Georges Borchardt"
French Culture, Official Website of the French Embassy in New York, October 26, 2010.

References

External links

Finding aid to Georges Borchardt papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

Bibliography

* http://www.pw.org/content/agents_editors_qampa_agent_georges_borchardt * http://www.frenchculture.org/spip.php?article3789 * http://www.thejewishweek.com/features/beginning/frances_honorable_agent * http://gbagency.com/index.html * http://gbagency.com/authors.html * https://web.archive.org/web/20110622062951/http://www.themodernword.com/second_level.html * http://frenchmorning.com/ny/2010/10/26/georges-borchardt-agent-dinfluence/ * http://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2007/10/03/in_conversation_renowned.html

Honors

Awarded the Legion of Honor in 2010 {{DEFAULTSORT:Borchardt, Georges 1928 births Literary agents American literary agencies Living people German emigrants to the United States