Hans Georg Heepe, who was instrumental in bringing American works to German readers, died of cancer on November 18 in Germany. He was 73.
Longtime editorial director of Rowohlt Verlag in Reinbek, he began as the right-hand man to legendary publisher Heinrich Maria Ledig-Rowohlt. Over five decades, he worked personally with authors such as Paul Auster, James Baldwin, Harold Brodkey, Marilyn French, John Irving, Toni Morrison, Vladimir Nabokov and Thomas Pynchon. Heepe was a founding director of the Ledig Rowohlt Foundation and Ledig House International Writer's Colony. The German translation of Endpoint, a volume of poetry by his favorite author, the late John Updike, was the last title he edited and saw into print. He is survived by his wife, Christa Loose.
[Thanks to Chandler Crawford of the Chandler Crawford Agency, who called Heepe "a king of European editors."]