Hervé de La Martinière, a leading publishing boss, has died at the age of 78.
By The New Obs with AFP
Published on , updated on
Hervé de La Martinière (pictured here on December 21, 2009 in Paris) died on May 8, 2025, at the age of 78. FRED DUFOUR / AFP
The founder and CEO of La Martinière publishing house died this Thursday, May 8. He was 78 years old.
A press release from his publishing house and the Media-Participations group announced this Saturday: Hervé de La Martinière died on Thursday, May 8. He was 78 years old and had a distinguished career in publishing behind him.
Born in Courbevoie in 1947, he joined the Hachette group at the age of 25, then worked for several publishing houses (Grasset, Fayard, Chêne, etc.) before taking over the management of Nathan in 1987. Then, as is often the case in this profession, he founded a publishing house in his own name: Éditions de La Martinière, in 1992, which was initially "dedicated to fine books and illustrated books." It was in this context that Hervé de La Martinière published, in 1999, what would become "a global success, with 3.5 million copies sold" : "La Terre vue du ciel" by Yann Arthus-Bertrand.
Enough to build a group that soon brought together other houses: the New York editions Abrams Book (purchased in 1997), but above all Le Seuil, in 2004, as well as its associated houses (Points, Métailié, L'Olivier...). And to become "one of the major players in French publishing, controlling its distribution and dissemination". Its main bookstore successes then range from "All men do not inhabit the world in the same way" , by Jean-Paul Dubois, crowned by the Prix Goncourt in 2019 (Éditions de l'Olivier), to the series of "Fait Maison" by chef Cyril Lignac (from 2020).
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La Martinière editions, for their part, will be content with more modest triumphs in terms of literature, but have done well in recent years by publishing writers such as Sofia Aouine (Prix de Flore 2019 with “Rhapsodie des oubliés” ) or Christophe Bigot (selected in autumn 2024 on all the prize lists with “Un autre m'attend quelque part” ).
In 2006, Hervé de La Martinière launched a lawsuit against Google, which was massively digitizing books without publishers' permission and against the wishes of rights holders. He was joined by the National Publishing Union (SNE) and fellow publishers. The dispute ended in 2011 after a digitization agreement was reached with the internet giant.
In 2018, Hervé de La Martinière integrated his publishing house into the Média-Participations group, and became its vice-president. "He was above all a fervent admirer of his authors, to whom he devoted unwavering loyalty and friendship (...); a lover of literature who was keen to create a literary department named after his house; a defender of the bookstore and of a certain idea of publishing," according to the publishing house and Media-Participations.
"He was passionate , he loved discovering artists, showing them , we wanted to work with him," reacted Yann Arthus-Bertrand to the AFP, linked to him by a "very deep friendship". "For the book "The Earth seen from the sky", added the photographer, he had a vision, he had understood very well the side not only of "beauty of the world", but above all of "commitment to the reality of the world" and had given his green light "to very strong legends" .
By The New Obs with AFP
