In Depth
Ravi rides Atlantic wave
26.11.07 Joel Rickett
It would be easy to cast Ravi Mirchandani's career as a cautionary parable of modern publishing. An editor of international renown, he was given his marching orders from Random House last year after repeatedly clashing with his bosses. Now he's happily ensconced at independent Atlantic Books, where he's been given free reign to follow his instincts as editor-in-chief.
A classic case of a maverick but inspired publisher not fitting today's corporate culture, then? Maybe so, but that's a story Mirchandani himself refuses to spin. While acknowledging some conflict with his former employers (more of which later), he steadfastly refuses to score easy points.
"I used to get terribly irritated when people at small publishers would constantly try and do down the big corporate houses, and I've no desire to do it now just because I've changed my hat," he says. "Publishing is like an ecosystem—there are things that large companies can do that small companies can't, and vice versa."
He gives one example: at the major houses brand-name authors such as John Grisham and Ian Rankin are like "huge trees which take up all the light". By contrast indies can nurture a wider variety of lesser-known writers, growing each of their sales to higher levels. But he quickly adds a caveat: Random is "fantastic at paying attention to books bought cheaply that go on to be huge", such as The Time Traveler's Wife, which Cape's Dan Franklin picked up for £7,500.
To further deflate the anti-conglomerate brigade, he reels off practical advantages of working for a £100m-plus company: more colleagues to pop for a drink with, spacious offices, desktop printers that work. Any idea that he'd leave behind those interminable sales and marketing meetings in favour of long afternoons tending to manuscripts are also wide of the mark: at Atlantic he's spending more time in team meetings, becoming even more immersed in areas outside editorial. This reversal of received wisdom suits him fine. "I like it when assumptions and clichés aren't delivered," he says, "in publishing as well as in life".
It is clear that Mirchandani is relishing his new home, with its "generous and warm family atmosphere" and its collegiate links with other indies, notably nearby Faber and Quercus. Acquisition decisions are made quickly-—usually after a brief conversation with Atlantic UK founder and c.e.o. Toby Mundy—and Mirchandani is not restricted by labyrinthine corporate politics, overlaps with sibling imprints, or the need to fit any over-arching strategy.
"I've asked Toby for a brief three times and he's declined," he laughs. "He's had his chance. My brief is to do what I do." So he'll buy around 20 titles a year across popular science, history, current affairs, literary fiction (particularly in translation) and crime. He estimates that his tastes overlap with Mundy's by 75%. "If we were the same, or completely out of kilter, it would be problematic. This way we look to each other for support in the books we're doing, while knowing that there'll be things he buys that I don't get, and vice-versa."
The 1980s popular science boom forged Mirchandani's reputation. Joining Penguin at the age of 24 to edit reference, he inherited Richard Dawkins' seminal The Blind Watchmaker, going on to acquire books by Stephen Pinker, Mat Ridley and Stephen J Gould. One imagines Mirchandani was unfazed by close engagements with these formidable academics: a schoolboy maths buff and subscriber to the New Scientist, his jovial manner belies a sharp, rigorous mind. He later carved a reputation in history commissioning, persuading Sir Ian Kershaw to turn his energies to Hitler and Tony Judt to look at 20th-century Britain (eventually released in 2005 as the bestselling Postwar).
Hungry to turn his hand to fiction, in 1996 he moved to Weidenfeld with a wide-ranging brief, but struggled to convince literary agents to send him novels. A breakthrough came in the form of a pre-emptive bid for Bernhard Schlink's haunting post-Holocaust story The Reader, which was a literary sensation. "That single book made me a fiction publisher," he recalls. "It changed the make-up of my submissions."
From that point he could follow his eclectic tastes, latterly at Random's William Heinemann imprint—publishing Thomas Harris alongside Richard Powers, Rachel Seiffert alongside Mario Puzo. But his last few years were rocky, as he repeatedly fell out with divisional directors—communications were said to have completely broken down.
"I was asked to find myself another job—a very civilised way of being fired," he recalls. "I don't properly know why, but it's not as though I can't imagine various reasons. I'm not the most straightforward member of staff." He's still raw but he's becoming more sanguine: "In my time at Random I had five bosses, and I always had an odd role, so it's not surprising that it didn't go on forever. I wouldn't have left because I hate change, so maybe I needed it to be done to me."
Well connected
News of his departure resonated internationally, because Mirchandani is one of the UK's best-connected editors. "The publishers I admire function in the world, not just in the world of their own language," he says, naming Roberto Colasso at Italy's Adelphi and Luiz Schwarcz at Brazil's Compania Das Letras. So he's in his element at Frankfurt, which he found far more productive as a small publisher.
At the London Book Fair, Bombay-born Mirchandani snapped up his first ever Indian novel, White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (due in April). Another major buy has been The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway, a literary thriller starring a female sniper (due in May). Mirchandani compares it to The Reader and Seiffert's The Dark Room. "Like those books it's tiny but has big resonances, and comes out of another appalling moment in European history. It's about the difficulties of making moral decisions in difficult times, which is something few people in this country have experiences of."
Both novels were won in heated auctions against editors at larger groups. "I haven't lost a book for money yet [at Atlantic]," he says. "I have been outbid, but only when I wouldn't have wanted to offer that sort of money even if I was still at Random House." Yet another publishing myth punctured, then.
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