Homage to the famous French Publisher Jean-Claude Lattès
It is with great sadness that we learnt about the decease of Jean-Claude Lattès, on January 27th, in Paris, at the age of 76. Jean-Claude Lattès was particularly renowned for his talent as a publisher.
Born in 1941, Jean-Claude Lattès first worked as a literary critique for various magazines and as intern with the publishing company Grasset. He started his career in edition with Pierre Belfond in 1963, before joining Robert Laffont’s publishing house in 1965. After a few years, Jean-Claude Lattès decided to create his own publishing company, Edition spéciale, along with Jacques Lanzmann. In 1971, Jean-Claude Lattès alone took the reins of the company, giving it his name.
His choices as a publisher earned him his fame; Bernard Pivot, chairman of the Académie Goncourt and a friend of Jean-Claude Lattès, said of him that he had “a gift, probably related to his debut in journalism to spot eclectic talents”. Jean-Claude Lattès published for instance the bestseller A Bag of Marbles, by Jospeph Joffo, in 1973, and the Nobel-prize winner to be Naguib Mahfouz.
Jean-Claude Lattès was also involved in the controversial publication of the murderer Jacques Mesrine’s memoirs, The Death Instinct. Despite having to give up the publication following threats, Jean-Claude Lattès was given an opportunity to defend a definition of his work as a publisher: “the publisher is here to testify, not to judge”.
Jean-Claude Lattès had left the publishing house in 1991 and settled in Provence, where he focused on writing historical novels. JC Lattes remains to this day a successful publishing house, in the fields of French as well as international literature.
A number of the discoveries of JC Lattes publishing house have been translated and are available in the United Kingdom:
- The Châtelet Apprentice, by Jean-François Parot, translated by Michael Glencross (Gallic Books 2008)
- All This Has Nothing To Do With Me, by Monica Sabolo, translatd by Georgina Collins (Picador 2016)
- Based on a True Story, by Delphine de Vigan, translated by George Miller (Bloomsbury Publishing 2018)
You can search on our website Culturethèque the references of the French JC Lattes e-books (in French).