Geoff Mulligan is to launch a new literary fiction imprint at Profile. The Clerkenwell Press, which will publish its first titles in autumn 2011, will be a bespoke list of international writing of "literary fiction in its broadest sense", potentially including translations and memoir.
The plan is for four to six titles a year, with Mulligan building and shaping the "tightly focused" portfolio while continuing to edit his longstanding Laureate-laden list of Harvill Secker authors, the jewel in the Random House crown, which includes David Lodge, Tm Parks, Joseph O'Connor, Louis de Bernières, Toni Morrison, Gunter Grass and J M Coetzee. The new arrangement of course has the agreement of Random House CEO Gail Rebuck, and Mulligan stressed there would be no clash with his work there or with Pete Ayrton's Serpent's Tail list, which joined Profile in January 2007 – "we have different tastes".
Mulligan told Frankfurt Fair Dealer that the seeds for Clerkenwell Press were sewn over a beer with Profile MD Andrew Franklin. "For some time, I'd had this idea for a small and very manageable literary list and I mentioned it to Andrew, who went away and thought about it. Mostly these days you write a proposal, but it's all been very spontaneous. The name is a homage to Clerkenwell, which is a fantastic and historic area of London – and home to Profile. I'm truly delighted to be working with the team at Profile, who publish wonderful books and have a great time doing it."
Franklin is equally excited: "We've won the lottery! The centre of literary London has moved to EC1 – to Clerkenwell," he told FFD. "Geoff has such good taste in both English and international fiction and it will be wonderful to have him on board. Both he and Pete are Chevaliers de la Legion d'Honneur."
Mulligan, a much-respected figure on the international publishing stage, began his career at Picador in the golden era of Sonny Mehta and Simon Master. He then moved to Secker & Warburg, which was merged with Harvill in 2004 to become Harvill Secker. He speaks and reads French, German and Spanish, and was named the list's Editor-at-Large following last year's Random House restructure, which put Liz Foley in charge.
