Barney Rosset

Qualche giorno fa è morto, a 89 anni, Barney Rosset, il fondatore di Grove Press, un uomo coraggioso, libero e anticonformista che ha pubblicato e fatto conoscere molti scrittori controversi. "The fiery and publisher Rosset, who introduced the country to countless political and avant-garde writers and risked prison and financial ruin to release such underground classics as Tropic of Cancer and Lady Chatterley's Lover, has died ... A bon vivant who enjoyed long lunches and strong martinis, Rosset was a slightly built man with a brisk, peppery voice; and a breathless laugh, often at his own expense. His longtime editor in chief at Grove, Richard Seaver, would remember him as 'often irascible, a control freak, prone to panic attacks,' with a 'sadistic element' that shadowed his 'innate generosity.' Rosset, interviewed by The Associated Press in 1998, called himself an 'amoeba with a brain,' ever slipping into enemy territory.

Entro l'anno dovrebbe uscire presso Algonquin la sua autobiografia, dal titolo provvisorio di The Subject Was Left-Handed. wsj.