LIVES IN BRIEF
SONNY MEHTA, pictured, who has died at his Manhattan home at the age of 77, was one of the great American book publishers.
The editor-in-chief of the distinguished publishing house Alfred A Knopf, Mehta produced such Nobel-winning authors as Toni Morrison and Kazuo Ishiguro. Among his many other achievements was producing such best-selling populist books as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson, and Fifty Shades Of Grey, by EL James.
“Mehta’s contributions to the world of letters and publishing are without precedent,” said a statement from the publisher. “His exacting standards – in editorial, production, design, marketing, and publicity – were a beacon to the book industry and beyond.”
Other top-selling books to emerge during Mehta’s long reign were Bill Clinton’s memoir, My Life, and
Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In.
Among the many distinguished authors who paid tribute to Mehta were Don Winslow, who said Mehta had “personally edited” several of his books, and added: “He was a giant of literature. A true gentleman”.
Tributes were also paid by Joan Didion, Haruki Murakami and Anne Tyler, who described Mehta as the “Fred Astaire of editing”. Other authors published by Knopf during Mehta’s time ranged from Gabriel Garcia Marquez to Robert Caro, Nora Ephron, tennis star Andre Agassi and actress Katherine Hepburn.
Mehta often said that on a good day, he was convinced he had the best job in the world.
KELLY FRASER, who has died at the age of 26, was a Canadian pop singer who had a substantial hit with an Inuit-language cover version of Diamonds, written by Rihanna.
She died in Winnipeg, Canada, on Christmas Eve.
Her family issued a statement saying she had taken her own life. She had, they said, “suffered from PTSD for many years as a result of childhood traumas, racism and persistent cyber-bullying.
“She was actively seeking help and spoke openly about her personal challenges online and through her journey”.
Thor Simonsen, Fraser’s producer, said that while she wrote or translated songs into the Inuit language, Inuktitut, one of her key aims was to “use pop music as a platform to strengthen her language”.
She was understood to be working on her third album, entitled Decolonize, at the time of her death.
SIR DAVID JONES, who has died at the age of 76 from complications of Parkinson’s disease, was a former chairman and chief executive of Next, the retail chain.
He was made chief executive in 1988 following the high-profile ousting of the company’s founder, George Davies. Mr Davies later accused Sir David of having a lust for power. Next, however, was by that time in trouble, having seen its stock market value collapsing from £1.3 billion to just £25 million.
Sir David would ruthlessly reshape the business, getting rid of underperforming stores and in the process sacking 2,000 staff, and eventually establishing it as the UK’S thirdlargest fashion chain, behind M&S and the Arcadia group.
He stepped down as chief executive in 2001 and became chairman in 2002, at which point he publicly disclosed he had been living with Parkinson’s since 1982, when he was not yet 40.
He remained as Next chairman until 2006 and also became a nonexecutive chairman on the board of the Morrisons supermarket group.