I smiled when I saw Christopher MacLehose’s photograph with his Hungarian dog when I was reading the story, Christopher MacLehose: A life in publishing,
in Guardian Online. That’s the way I remember him, proper in every way,
a tall gangly teenager full of enthusiasm who had grown up to become a
tall and gangly adult full of enthusiasm. I met him in Sharjah during the book fair. I was in the hotel room looking through the list of other attendees to the ‘rights’ sessions when I saw his name. (I had received the list in KL earlier but I hadn’t had the time.)
MacLehose was the name I had associated with the Harvill Press (which he acquired in a management buyout in 1995), that wonderful independent publishing house that introduced me (and several other Silverfish regulars) to José Saramago, Haruki Murakami, Claudio Magris, Javier Marías, Giuseppe Lampedusa, Mikhaíl Bulgakov and Raymond Carver, amongst others (some of whom are household names, now). I would buy books by imprints in the nineties, and it was during one of my trips to India that I discovered the Harvill Press. I was fascinated by the range of authors and bought every title with a line drawing of a tiny panther on the spine.
I became fascinated with the publisher/editor and Harvill became one of the inspirations for Silverfish Books, not so much for books in translations but for books of quality; one could pick up a Harvill and not be disappointed. Harvill became my vision for Silverfish Books. And with MacLehose in Sharjah, and staying in the same hotel, I felt like a schoolgirl with a crush.
I wondered if I should talk to him. If truth be told, I find celebrity authors quite insufferable and generally avoid them -- whether they are world-class writers or not, I’m not interested in them defacing my book by signing them -- and I expected Maclehose to be the same (quite unfairly). I saw him during tea, after a session, talking to some people. (We all wore name tags, so I could identify him). Something about him made me drop my guard and approach him, and I was glad I did. It was like he was genuinely glad to meet and chat with me, and this went on for much longer than I had expected. He sounded a little bitter about the sale of Harvill to Random House -- "... it was not my idea" -- and of his life in the Random House wilderness, but was glad to have founded the MacLehose Press, and continue where he’d left off. He asked to see some of Silverfish’s books and to keep in touch. (We talked more during bus rides later.) He was totally down to earth.
Many people might know the MacLehose Press as the one that published Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I’m certainly not one who’s interested in hero-worship or vicarious living, but if anyone comes high in my esteem, it’s Maclehose, for sticking to his guns, and introducing such wonderful and exciting authors and books to the boring, mind-numbing bookshelves of Anglophone readers, and for being such a staunch independent.
I’d like us to be that with Malaysian readers one day – pick up any Silverfish Book for a guaranteed good read. Books that make you feel more intelligent after you have read them.
