Joëlle Losfeld, book like the air
She'd been thinking about it for a while, tired of the constraints of life in a large group. But she hesitated. Fear of taking a leap of faith, no doubt. As time passed, she finally made up her mind: Joëlle Losfeld was leaving Gallimard to recreate her own publishing house. She had just signed the last contract that bound her to this all-powerful company in the literary world: she was leaving while retaining ownership of her name, which she had never wanted to give up, and was leaving Gallimard to manage her collection; there was no question of her authors' books being shredded. "I felt more and more uncomfortable in this structure that was constantly growing, " she confided one July evening in the cozy calm of her Parisian apartment. " I wanted to rediscover the pleasure of being able to publish the texts I liked."
Quite a challenge, at 73, when the publishing world is constantly restructuring and the book market is hardly flourishing. But Joëlle Losfeld no longer had a choice if she wanted to regain some room for maneuver. Her relationship with Antoine Gallimard was notoriously strained, even though she claims that he "was very good." "Let's just say that I didn't have a deep affinity with him and he didn't have one with me either."
Libération
