Literary talent scout honoured by University of Canty

Before they were blockbuster films and hit television series, they were books. Before they were books, they were typescripts.

Putting polished versions of those typescripts in the hands of book lovers was Elisabeth Calder’s bread and butter, working as a founding director of the publishing house behind enormous literary successes such as Salman Rushdie, Julian Barnes, Anita Brookner, and the Harry Potter series.

University of Canterbury chancellor Sue McCormack said it was ‘‘almost impossible’’ not to have read an author Calder had discovered and nurtured. ‘‘Books like The Handmaid’s Tale, The English Patient and Midnight’s Children have inspired, delighted and challenged generations of readers,’’ she said.

Calder plans to attend a University of Canterbury’s graduation ceremony tomorrow to receive an honorary Doctor of Letters in person and address the graduands.

Calder, 81, spent her early years in London before emigrating with her family to New Zealand. She went to Palmerston North Girls’ High School, graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English literature from the University of Canterbury in 1958 and married fellow student Richard Calder. The pair returned to the United Kingdom and later, she lived for several years in Brazil where she worked as a fashion model.

She began her publishing career auspiciously in 1971, publishing Rushdie’s first novel Grimus, John Irving’s The World According to Garp and Angela Carter’s The Passion of New Eve.

Julian Barnes’ first four novels, including Booker Prize-shortlisted Flaubert’s Parrot, and winners Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and Hotel du Lac by Brookner followed.

After several years of hard slog and holding various roles within publishing houses, her gift for identifying outstanding writers saw her offered a role as a founding director of literary giant Bloomsbury Publishing in 1986.

Award-winning authors slowly joined the firm, including Margaret Atwood, the author behind American dystopian drama The Handmaid’s Tale, which inspired a television hit series. Although she had a nose for bestsellers, publishing runaway successes such as David Guterson’s Snow Falling on Cedars, she also fostered less commercial writers, such as poet, novelist Jeanette Winterson and art critic, novelist and poet John Berger.

Calder was named Editor of the Year at the British Book Awards in 1997, received an Order of Merit for Services to culture in Brazil in 2004 and named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2018. This year she is a Booker Prize fiction judge.

It was ‘‘almost impossible’’ not to have read an author Calder had discovered and nurtured.