Callil, Carmen 1938-

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Callil, Carmen 1938-

PERSONAL:

Born 1938, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Education: B.A.

ADDRESSES:

Home—London, England.

CAREER:

Publisher and writer. Virago Press, London, England, founder and chairperson, beginning 1972; Chatto & Windus, London, managing director, beginning c. 1982; Random House, London, publisher-at-large, 1993-94; Channel 4 Television, British Broadcasting Corporation, London, director, 1985-91.

MEMBER:

Royal Society of Arts (fellow).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Honorary doctorates from the Universities of Sheffield, York, and Oxford Brookes, and The Open University, all 1994.

WRITINGS:

(With Colm Tóibín) Modern Library: The Two Hundred Best Novels in English since 1950, Picador (London, England), 1999.

Bad Faith: A Forgotten History of Family, Fatherland, and Vichy France, Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

A longtime publisher and founder of Virago Press, Carmen Callil is also the author of two books. She collaborated with Colm Tóibín to write Modern Library: The Two Hundred Best Novels in English since 1950. According to a profile of the author on the University of Melbourne's Web site, Callil was "angered by the Conservative government's choices on the national curriculum for English, which she described as ‘stacked with bad poets,’ [so] she coauthored The Modern Library."

In Bad Faith: A Forgotten History of Family, Fatherland, and Vichy France, Callil provides a biography of the notorious Louis Darquier, who was an anti-Semitic Frenchman paid by the Nazis to espouse their propaganda prior to the outbreak of World War II. Once France was occupied by Germany and installed the collaborationist Vichy government, Darquier would become Vichy's Commissioner of Jewish Affairs, a post that led him to deport thousands of French Jews to concentration camps and their deaths. "Callil sets Darquier's public career in an unsparing reconstruction of his sordid private life," noted a Publishers Weekly contributor. Callil became interested in writing about Darquier through the suicide of her former therapist, Anne Darquier, who was Darquier's abandoned daughter. Patti C. McCall wrote in the Library Journal that the author's "compelling work is reparation to the healer and friend who was unable to speak openly about the cause of her loneliness and suffering." Jay Freeman, writing in Booklist, commented that "this sad but beautifully written work provides a frank and disturbing portrait." Several reviewers also noted that Bad Faith is about much more than just Darquier. "Callil deals movingly with the terrible details of the treatment of the Jews in occupied France," commented Richard Griffiths in the New Statesman.

Callil told CA that her mother and father first got her interested in writing and that injustice influences her work.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, August 1, 2006, Jay Freeman, review of Bad Faith: A Forgotten History of Family, Fatherland, and Vichy France, p. 30.

Bookseller, October 3, 2003, "Callil to Write Memoir," p. 6; January 20, 2006, Benedicte Page, "Fighting for Justice: Virago Founder Carmen Callil Has Written a Book about Vichy France, and about the Events That Eventually Led to the Death of Her Psychiatrist 35 Years Ago. She Talks to Benedicte Page," p. 22; June 9, 2006, "Forthcoming Prizes," p. 45.

Economist, June 12, 1993, "Woman's Own: Feminist Publishing," p. 97.

Financial Times, April 15, 2006, Rosie Blau, "‘Get Yourself a Rich Husband’ the Writer, Publisher and Icon of 1970s Feminism Offers Some Forthright and Surprising Advice to Rosie Blau," p. 3.

Guardian April 8, 2007, Rebecca Seal, review of Bad Faith.

Harper's Magazine, October 1, 2006, Nicholas Fraser, review of Bad Faith, p. 86.

History Today, May 1, 2006, Martin Evans, "Sins of the Fathers: Carmen Callil Talks to Martin Evans about Her Recent Excursion into the Lies and Hypocrisy of Vichy France," p. 70.

Independent (London, England), April 7, 2006, Richard Vinen, review of Bad Faith.

Library Journal, September 15, 2006, Patti C. McCall, review of Bad Faith, p. 71.

Observer (London, England), March 26, 2006, Peter Conrad, review of Bad Faith.

New Statesman, April 10, 2006, Richard Griffiths, review of Bad Faith, p. 51.

New Statesman & Society, March 3, 1995, Nyta Mann, "Women on the Move," p. 24.

New York Times, October 12, 2006, Janet Maslin, review of Bad Faith, p. 9.

New York Times Book Review, September 17, 2006, Christopher Caldwell, review of Bad Faith.

Publishers Weekly, May 10, 1993, Sara Wheeler, "Callil Named to New Roles in Reorganization of Random U.K," p. 18; March 28, 1994, Sara Wheeler, "Callil to Leave Random House," p. 13; March 6, 1995, Jean Richardson, "Callil Resigning from House She Founded," p. 15; July 10, 2006, review of Bad Faith, p. 67.

Reference & Research Book News, November 1, 2006, review of Bad Faith.

Spectator, April 15, 2006, M.R.D. Foot, review of Bad Faith.