Video: Publisher and New Press Founder André Schiffrin Dies at 78

In this interview from 2007 André Schiffrin discusses his political and economic split with Random House, the experience of starting The New Press, and working with writers like Studs Terkel. Schiffrin also talks about his memoir, A Political Education: Coming of Age in Paris and New York, and the “chill that spread over America” during McCarthyism.

André Schiffrin, a leading figure in the book publishing world for nearly 50 years, has died at age 78 from pancreatic cancer. Above, you can watch [Democracy Now]’s 2007 interview with Schiffrin, who was the editor in chief of Pantheon Books, where he edited titles by Jean-Paul Sartre, Studs Terkel, Art Spiegelman, Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault. In 1990, he was asked to resign after his unit came under pressure to raise its profit margin, a move critics condemned as corporate censorship. Schiffrin went on to set up the nonprofit publishing house, The New Press, in 1992.

This interview was originally published by Democracy Now on March 28, 2007. It was reprinted on December 2, 2013.