ANDRÉ DEUTSCH the Great Persuader Diana Athill We First Met

■ This article originally appeared in Logos 14/4, 2003, 174–180. ANDRÉ DEUTSCH The great persuader Diana Athill We first met in 1943. André Deutsch and I were both twenty-six and we were to see a great deal of each other until the day he died at the age of eighty-two. To this day I can’t explain how, within him, absolute confi- dence in his own rightness could co-exist with personal modesty. Modest he was: he never made any claim to recognition or praise—was, indeed, embarrassed when they came his way—and had less inclination to talk about himself than anyone else I ever knew; yet he was so addicted to his own point of view that he was almost entirely oblivious of anyone else’s. His modesty prevented me from learning much about his back- ground—he wasn’t interested in discussing it. I knew that he was the only child of Jewish parents, that his father had been a dentist in Budapest and that they had a dachshund called Oscar. That was all he ever told me about his childhood, although it somehow became evident that he was a much-cherished little boy and that the family was not religiously observant. A much-admired uncle knew a lot about England and loved it. Latin was obligatory in Hungarian schools but you could choose between German and English, and André chose English because of this uncle. He also decided, as soon as he was old enough, to go to England and enroll at the London School of Economics (LSE). When he said goodbye to his parents, he felt guilty because he was sure he would never return to Hungary. Why not? I pressed him about this because it seemed so odd: there was no suggestion that he or his parents foresaw what was to happen to the Jews. He always spoke of Budapest with enthusiasm and was to prove a remarkably dutiful son when he and his parents were eventually reunited Born in 1917, Diana Athill spent all her working life in publishing, working for André Deutsch Limited—and in André Deutsch’s first firm, Allan Wingate—as Editorial Director. Among authors she published and worked with were Norman Mailer, Mordecai Richler, Brian Moore, Jean Rhys, Gita Sereny and V. S. Naipaul. Among her books is a gracious and frankly written memoir of her publishing life, entitled Stet (Granta Books, London 2000). © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi ��.��63/9789004�83534_0�6 andré deutsch 141 as a result of his own efforts. But all I got out of him was a shrug, and ‘I don’t know—I just was sure, that’s all.’ So there he was in England in the late 1930s, bumming about as a ‘stu- dent’ (his plans for the LSE had faded out), picking up pretty girls and having a delightful time. When the war started and he could no longer get money from his parents, another uncle, who lived in Switzerland, was able to help him a little. He found a job as a floor manager at the Dorchester Hotel, from which, however, as a Hungarian national, he was soon removed (via the luggage lift) to an internment camp in the Isle of Man. When the Hungarians were released, a fellow internee had given André a letter of introduction to Mr Wilson, manager of the then famous London bookshop Bumpus. Mr Wilson had no job for him but he was kind (André remained very fond of him) and passed him on to John Roberts, who was running the publishing firm Nicholson and Watson almost single- handed and was in need of a sales representative. In this haphazard way, André fell into the vocation he had not known was his. He recognized his destiny at once and was soon burrowing his way with astonishing speed into the complexities of the publishing pro- cess. By the time he and I met, a few months later, he was already certain that he was going to be a publisher—or indeed, that he already was one, except for a few details such as capital, a name and an office. Nothing in his career was more extraordinary than the rapidity and ease with which he took to his trade. In 1944, George Weidenfeld, who was working in the BBC (as I was), brought him to a flat-warming party I gave. This led to a brief affaire between André and me, which led in turn to a relaxed and pleasant friendship and to his asking me one day, as we walked arm-in-arm down Frith Street, ‘When I start my publishing firm after the war, would you like to join me?’ Of course I said yes, but not in any serious expectation of its happening, because what was this firm but a daydream? He had no money, no connections. But he did have a rare and useful gift: in him there was hardly any gap between thinking and doing. Possibly this con- nects with his reluctance to talk about himself. Perhaps he existed more in terms of action than of thought. Ideas converted to deeds almost as they came to him, and this was his greatest strength. I was not able to witness his beginnings in the first few months after the war because I was taking a long break at my family’s home. I knew he was raising money and finding premises. The money turned out to be £3,000, some of it from our friend Audrey Harvey, some of it from a man called Alex Lederer who manufactured handbags. I am sorry now that .

Load more