Verso developments
Strange goings-on at Verso. Though several fine people have tried to
carry on in recent years, the house has been a bit wobbly ever since
they fired Colin Robinson in the fall of 2001. (Disclosure alert:
Colin’s a good friend of mine, and he took a gamble on me when he
asked me to do Wall Street for them when I was even more obscure than
I am now.) In recent weeks, the entire New York office has resigned,
and a new crowd is moving in. They’ve hired a new US editor,
described as follows by Giles O’Bryen, the London-based managing
director of Verso, in an email just sent to Verso authors:
Verso’s US operation will now be run by Gan Qi, who I am delighted
to announce is joining Verso as Director of the New York Office. Qi
is a vastly experienced publisher, who started and ran what became
a substantial bookshop and publishing business in Beijing, with a
list akin to Verso’s and a number of bestsellers to its name. In
2001 she moved to Seattle for a period of academic study, before
returning to China to take up the post of Publishing Director at
the Tom Publishing Group in early 2004. Qi starts at Verso on 18
September, and I still can’t quite believe how lucky we are to have
her. Gan Qi may be a very talented and wonderful publisher. But, as you
can see, she has no experience at all in the US or British market.
Her entire publishing history is in China. I have no idea where Verso
is going, but given its longstanding importance to radical thought in
the English-speaking world, I’m a little concerned.
Doug