Carmen Callil founded Virago Press in 1973 and received the Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature in 2017.
17 Facts About Carmen Callil
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Carmen Callil has been described by Gail Rebuck as "the most extraordinary publisher of her generation".
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Carmen Callil's father, Frederick Alfred Louis Callil, was a barrister and lecturer in French at the University of Melbourne who died when Callil was eight years old.
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Carmen Callil was of Lebanese descent; his father claimed to be the first Lebanese person to emigrate to Australia.
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Carmen Callil was educated at Star of the Sea Convent and at Loreto Mandeville Hall.
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Carmen Callil then studied at the University of Melbourne, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and Literature in 1960.
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Carmen Callil emigrated from Australia one week later and settled in London.
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Carmen Callil later took responsibility for all imprints of Granada Publishing, and then at Anthony Blond and Andre Deutsch.
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Carmen Callil left to work for Ink, a countercultural newspaper founded by Richard Neville, Andrew Fisher, Felix Dennis and Ed Victor in 1971.
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At Ink, Carmen Callil met Marsha Rowe and Rosie Boycott, who founded the feminist magazine Spare Rib in June 1972.
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In 1973, Carmen Callil founded Virago Press, to "publish books which celebrated women and women's lives, and which would, by so doing, spread the message of women's liberation to the whole population", through the work of new and neglected women writers.
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Carmen Callil left book publishing in 1994, and for some years divided her time between London and Caunes-Minervois in France.
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Carmen Callil was a judge for the 2011 Man Booker International Prize but resigned in protest after her co-judges Rick Gekoski and Justin Cartwright chose Philip Roth as the winner.
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In 2010, Carmen Callil was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
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In 2018, Carmen Callil featured in the exhibition Rights for Women: London's Pioneers in their Own Words, staged at Senate House Library, University of London.
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Carmen Callil died of leukaemia on 17 October 2022 at her home in London, aged 84.
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Carmen Callil had been working on a personal memoir, which she did not complete.