André Schiffrin, co-founder of the New Press and former editor-in-chief and managing director of Pantheon Books, died Sunday, the New York Times reported, describing him as "a publishing force for 50 years, whose passion for editorial independence produced shelves of serious books, a titanic collision with a conglomerate that forced him out to stem losses, and a late-in-life comeback as a nonprofit publisher." He was 78.
Dennis Johnson, co-founder of Melville House, which published Schiffrin's memoir A Political Education: Coming of Age in Paris and New York, remembered him as both an inspiration and a friend. Johnson wrote that "perhaps the thing about Andre's life that the Times obituary most obscures is what a hero that fight with conglomerate publishing made him to so many publishers, particularly a generation of small independent publishers. No one did so much, in fact, to define the term independent publisher coming into the twenty-first century."
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Bookseller Matt Bibb died last Thursday. He was 36. Wanda Jewell, executive director of the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, wrote a moving tribute on SIBA's website, noting that she first met him in 2002: "The SIBA show was to be held in Atlanta and I trained a dozen Chapter Eleven booksellers to work that show's registration over the weekend. One stood out, and that was Matt. You couldn't help but notice him. Well over six feet tall, a bear of a guy with a long dark ponytail and a beard to match. And he stood out in other ways as well. He could not have been more amenable and hard-working and he has been behind the registration desk at every SIBA since. I'm so glad he was at the New Orleans show. Matt had an affinity for New Orleans. It was his kind of town. I cannot imagine a SIBA Show without him."
A memorial fund has been started to help his family with funeral expenses.
