Peter Mayer, who served as chairman and CEO of the Penguin Group from 1978 to 1996, has been named the winner of the fifth annual London Book Fair/Trilogy Lifetime Achievement Award in International Publishing. He will receive the award at a ceremony at this April’s London Book Fair. Since stepping down from Penguin, Mayer has been president and publisher of The Overlook Press, and in 2003 he acquired the U.K.-based Duckworth Publishers.
Simon Master, chair of the advisory board and group deputy chairman of Random House Group UK observed that Mayer “has long been an inspirational figure in the publishing industry both in the U.K. and overseas. His dedication to British and international publishing has distinguished his career and makes him fully deserving of the London Book Fair/Trilogy Lifetime Achievement Award 2008.’
Past winners of the award have been Lord Weidenfield, Weidenfield and Nicholson, Christopher MacLehose, now of MacLehose Press, John Lyons of Little, Brown (posthumously) and Lynette Owen of Pearson Education.
