Carmen Callil

Author and publisher

Carmen Callil is an author and publisher. After graduating from the University of Melbourne with a BA in history and literature, she worked for Hutchinson Publishing for two years until 1967, when she became Publicity Manager of Panther Books. In 1971, she began working at the newspaper Ink, and a year later, launched the publishing company Virago and the publicity company Carmen Callil limited.

In the early 1980s, Callil was appointed Managing Director of Chatto & Windus and The Hogarth Press, remaining until 1994, when she became Editor-At-Large for the Random House publishing comapanies. She has also served as a member of the board of Channel 4 Television, and has been a judge for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and Chair of the Booker Prize for Fiction.

Callil is the author of Bad Faith: A Forgotten History of Family & Fatherland (2006), which explores Vichy France and profiles Louis Darquier, Vichy's Commissioner for Jewish Affairs, and co-authored The Modern Library: The Best 200 Novels in English since 1950 (1999) with Colm Tóibín. In 1986, she was the recipient of the Distinguished Service Award from the International Women's Writing Guild.