Peter Mayer

When it comes to translation quality, it's not a question of accuracy but of nuance, especially in fiction. The prose has to read fluidly in fiction, and this is a completely different issue from literal accuracy.

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If you're a serious publisher, you publish books because they work. In other words, they are written well; the reader identifies with the characters. The context seems to be real whether he's writing about the French Revolution or the failure of Lehman Brothers.

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It is always a gamble to agree to publish something one has not yet read oneself.

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I'm happy as a book publisher. I loved my 19 years being a C.E.O. I loved it to distraction, but I couldn't do it till I'm 80.

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Worthwhile books trouble our complacency, sharpening our minds and senses. Some are dangerous, and they, too, must be published.

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I think the past need not be the dead past. If we get it right, with new books, the past can be a beacon for the future.

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Penguin became less of a publisher for all different kinds of people and increasingly became the paperback publisher for the best-educated people, those people who shopped at bookstores. That proved perhaps not only to be rather elitist, but it also proved not to be good business.

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