Jorge HERRALDE at the Anagrama stand at the 1977 Frankfurt Fair COURTESY ANAGRAMA / EDITORIAL ANAGRAMA
"The intangible value contributed by a good editor to the authors and the titles incorporated into their catalog is the aura that their label manages to transmit," Javier Pradera wrote in this same supplement in his review of
Opinions Mohicanas
, the first book in which Jorge Herralde (Barcelona, 85 years old) gathered materials about his job at the head of Anagrama two decades ago.
After the catalog of the Barcelona label built by him from 1969 to 2017 - when it passed into the hands of Silvia Sesé - there are thousands of calls, meals, meetings, trips, fairs and letters.
There are affections, dislikes, successes, and disappointments that go far beyond the covers of books.
The physical trace of all this is in a file located, for the moment, in front of the current headquarters of the publishing house.
Herralde knows that both the Biblioteca de Catalunya in Barcelona and the Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid are fighting for him, but by phone he explains that “first we will have to see if Feltrinelli wants him”, referring to the Italian group that bought Anagrama in 2015.
To the various volumes that have composed the heterodox memoirs of this editor,
Los papers de Herralde
is now added
.
This time the selection of the materials and the story are in charge of the professor and critic Jordi Gracia, who tells in his own way the history of Anagrama from the late sixties to the year 2000. Later, the letters were mostly emails and have lost some things on damaged hard drives.
The critic, author of the house, organizes the story in five periods and illustrates each of them with a selection of letters from Herralde, to which a handful of letters and notes from authors such as Richard Ford or Tom Wolfe are added at the end.
With the latter there was a happy ending after a disappointment witnessed by the 1989 telegram in which Herralde affirms that his departure to another label is "the saddest news" he has received "in my 20 years as editor, the most undeserved" .
Herralde's papers
brings together a “business correspondence”, as defined by Gracia, in front of more intimate epistles, such as those of the editor Jaime Salinas that were collected by Enric Bou in
When to edit was a party
(Tusquets, 2020), book that is cited in this new story.
In his letters, brief and addressed to more than a hundred agents, authors and journalists, Herralde shows off his fine sense of humor.
There are the fights against Franco's censorship and its obstacles, which did not end immediately after the death of the dictator.
In the letter addressed in February 1976 to
Cambio 16
regarding the resolution of the kidnapping of the book
Conversations with Pier Paolo Pasolini, he
regrets that “this seems to confirm the hypothesis that for some official of the Public Order Court I am something like the Dillinger or the Lute of the edition ”.
To Lieutenant General Gutiérrez Mellado he wrote to the Ministry of Defense in 1977: "I have the satisfaction of attaching to you the book
On the Psychology of Military Incompetence,
which I dare to suppose you will like."
The following year he went to an American editor at Jonathan Cape to inform her about "the Passwords collection (with authors like Tom Wolfe, Terry Southern, Charles Bukowski, Nora Ephron ...) which works relatively well".
To Patricia Highsmith's agent, for his part, he wrote in 1980: "We would be especially interested in the publication of the Ripley series."
It would be one of his greatest successes.
The contacts with international editors and agents are constant, as well as the fluent correspondence with Sergio Pitol, to whom he writes about the bombshell that the publication of
The Conspiracy of the Fools,
by John Kennedy Toole
has meant
: “The second edition made in August It sold out in three days and now I'm rushing through the third while the hysterical booksellers keep calling.
For me a novelty in the
metier ”.
Another recurring correspondent is Hans Magnus Enzensberger, whom he recruits as a jury for the essay award, an award that Herralde prepares with care and that he sometimes decides in advance: “I did not send you the text of the winning insurance [Jordi Llovet] since its characteristics (a solid but cumbersome Kristevian essay,
For a selfish aesthetic)
I thought it would not be to your liking ”, he writes.
In 1987, he complained to Pilar Miró that, for the first time, the Herralde Award ruling had not appeared on the news
Herralde's incessant battle with agents, especially her old friend Carmen Balcells, also appears in the correspondence.
In one of those fight letters, for example, he appeals to Roald Dahl's personal fortune to justify the advance he offers: “Apart from the fact that these advances seem sensible to me, it could be argued with the author (billionaire,
en passant)
or his representative that the Passwords collection, where it would appear, is the natural collection ”.
And he clarifies on more than one occasion that his personal friendship is not in question: “As for the fact that I feel reticent and distrustful, I think it is a subjective impression of you, but it does not correspond to reality.
Another thing is that it reacts 'in legitimate defense', so to speak, in the face of certain clauses that are not commented on or agreed upon, nor are they at all customary nationally or internationally ”.
But if the fights and anger with Balcells are recurrent, they are also with journalists.
Because the indefatigable editor, who declared ironic long ago that "the press conference was his preferred literary genre", has had a constant conversation with critics and cultural reporters.
His letters show that intense tug of war that shows that, in addition to being an attentive reader of manuscripts, Herralde is a voracious newspaper reader who has closely followed the space and attention his books and authors have received.
The critic Rafael Conte is ugly on January 1, 1983 that in the previous months only one book of the 19 that Anagrama had published had been reviewed;
Antonio-Prometeo Moya is blamed for his “hatred, discomfort and bad faith” for his criticism of
Un hombre sentimental,
by Javier Marías;
Francisco Umbral, who had published a column praising Rosa Montero, wrote to defend that, if one has to speak of a single writer as a "revelation", it must be Esther Tusquets.
The director of RTVE Pilar Miró reproaches him for the fact that the failure of the novel prize awarded to Félix de Azúa has not been, contrary to custom, covered by any of the daily news.
Nothing escapes the eye of the editor, very attentive to the public conversation he is determined to influence.
Because Herralde knows that press coverage is ammunition, and already in the eighties he tells foreign agents: "An author published in this collection can attract the critical attention as it deserves."
And his tireless promotion also takes other paths, because there is the editor writing to Enzensberger with enthusiasm about the young Spanish philosopher Fernando Savater.
It is not enough to do things well, you have to tell it and get it talked about.
"The reception of the novel is weak, both in terms of criticism and sales, since 'word of mouth' does not work even among your own friends," he wrote to Rafael Chirbes.
"To top it off, for the promotion, you 'hide' in a small Extremaduran village"
"There were also many kind letters," Herralde points out when reminded of the tone of some missives, "but they don't have the same glamor as outbursts of anger."
Among the most endearing are the ones he wrote to Carmen Martín Gaite: “Although, as you know, my concern as an editor, that is, as
go between
, are the authors, this interest increases in cases like yours in which the great quality of the texts with personal friendship ”.
And there are words of praise for young people, such as Marcos Giralt Torrente: "Your novel
Paris
reveals a writer of considerable talent and maturity," he wrote the same year that he won the novel prize.
He expresses his disappointment to Rafael Chirbes at what happened with his second book,
En la lucha final
- ”the reception of the novel is weak, both in terms of criticism and sales, since 'word of mouth' does not work even among your own friends , as you have told me.
To top it off, for the promotion, you 'hide' in a small Extremaduran village "-, and regrets that his third novel
(The Good Letter)
-" much more successful, although of uncertain commerciality (although it may bring surprises, as happens to often) ”- I will publish it with another —Debate, directed by Constantino Bértolo—.
Their claims to EL PAÍS seem to have been constant for a few years.
“Herralde's most colloquial and impatient story,” writes Gracia, “sets two enemies for the first stage of his editorial —Franco and disenchantment— and another two for the next: EL PAÍS (to sum up the Prisa group with the editorial Alfaguara inside) and Carmen Balcells ”.
Synergies, Herralde and other independent publishers at the time considered, hurt them.
Gracia states in the book that, in the absence of a rigorous study to confirm or deny Herralde's complaints, "we all move between impressions and conjectures, memories and wounds."
"It was very difficult for me to give up such a large sum of money," Paul Auster wrote to Jorge Herralde to justify his move to Seix Barral.
“We must not let this get between us.
Your friendship is essential for me and until they put me in the coffin I want to continue being a member of the Anagrama family ”.
Among the latest letters are a brief note he sent to Julian Barnes in 1998 about Michel Houellebecq - "the most interesting French writer (apart from being incorrect and insolent, of course) that has emerged in years" - or an affectionate letter from the same year to Roberto Bolaño in which he regrets that the Chilean novelist does not give in to his objections to some "chapters of yore."
In one addressed to Juan Villoro he writes about the gestation of
Los detectives savages,
which would end up winning the Herralde Prize: “Roberto Bolaño sends me your text
A poet
about the death of Mario Santiago Papasquiaro or José Alfredo Zendejas.
With the third name of Ulises Lima, he is the protagonist along with Bolaño himself in an enormous
work in progress ”.
How to reject a manuscript?
Herralde's papers
show How to reject a manuscript?
Herralde's papers
show some examples of this fine art that the founder of Anagrama had many occasions to practice.
A letter to André Glucksmann's agent in 1983 explains "the very low current interest in Spain in the issue of pacifism" and how the publisher is concentrating on the launch of works of fiction.
The rejections of José Carlos Llop or Andrés Trapiello are brief letters that always encourage authors to send their next books.
One of the hardest noes is the one directed by his friend Juan Antonio Masoliver, to whom he recommended "more scissors and less complacency", and concluded: "It's going to make you terrible, but that's said."
Today Herralde is just as resounding: "I was not well."
And he explains that when rejecting a book, he usually tried not to hurt.
"I told them that maybe I'm wrong, because publishers are not infallible and this also has to do with whether a book fits you or not."
Returning to the aura that an independent label exudes, someone like Jorge Herralde knows well what legends are made of.
One of the classic rules of elegance is that you have to suggest more than show.
In literature they call this iceberg theory, but the seduction dynamic is the same, and the publisher knows it.
His archive still holds many secrets for new self-portraits with and without retouching.
For now, Herralde's papers continue to be cataloged by his partner and a fundamental part of Anagrama as well: Lali Gubern.
The Herralde Papers.
A history of Anagrama (1968-2000) '.
Edition of Jordi Gracia.
Anagram, 2021. 424 pages.
19.90 euros.
It is published on March 3.
Javier Marías, Paul Auster and other breaks
In May 1995, the news broke of the break between Jorge Herralde and Javier Marías.
'El hombre sentimental' (1986) was the first title in Anagrama by the Madrid novelist, who on that same label triumphed internationally with 'Todos las almas' and 'Corazón tan blanco'.
'Tomorrow in the battle think of me' (1994) would be his last book with Herralde, and the anger, motivated by a discrepancy in the liquidations, is still there a quarter of a century later.
The long correspondence of the novelist that is kept in the Anagrama archive has not been able to be consulted by Jordi Gracia due to the existence of a prohibition that was communicated to him “by burofax”.
'Herralde's Papers' does, however, include two letters from the editor on this subject: one explaining the accounts to the novelist himself and the other to Michi Strausfeld telling him his version of a matter "as unpleasant as it is insane."
Throughout five decades, Enrique Vila-Matas, Belén Gopegui and Ignacio Martínez de Pisón also left Anagrama.
In 2011 Paul Auster said goodbye in a letter about the pocket editions, contracted by the Planeta group: "It was very difficult for me to give up such a large sum of money."
And adds.
“We must not let this get between us.
Your friendship is essential for me and until they put me in the coffin I want to continue being a member of the Anagrama family ”.