This appointment consecrates this investigative journalist and author of numerous successful essays, who until now held the position of literary director of the house.
A new era is dawning for Hachette Livre, the French leader in the sector. Three months after the thunderclap caused by the departure of Sophie de Closets from Fayard editions, the prestigious publishing house has just found a new CEO in the person of Isabelle Saporta. She will officially take office at the end of the week.
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This appointment is a consecration for this investigative journalist, aged 46, and author of numerous successful essays (including Le black book of agriculture, sold more than 100,000 copies), who until now held the position of literary director of the house. Before that, this doctor in political science, a graduate of Sciences Po Paris, had spent five years in the house as an editor. She has accompanied many authors, including the economist Thomas Porcher (whose the heretical treatise sold 50,000 copies), the writer Vincent Ravalec (the trilogy of Sainte-Croix-les-Vaches), journalist Christophe Barbier and star presenter Cyril Hanouna (What the French told me), the young columnist Maxime Lledo (Shattered Generation), or the great chef Olivier Roellinger (For a delicious revolution).
“It is a great satisfaction to be able to entrust the management of a company as illustrious as Fayard to Isabelle Saporta, a very talented editor who has worked for several years within this same publishing house. During her career as an editor, she has discovered new voices, new authors, new subjectscommented Pierre Leroy, Chairman and CEO of the Hachette Livre group.
The collection director had conducted a discreet internal campaign in recent weeks to get her hands on this coveted position. Fayard, which notably publishes authors Aurélie Valognes and Virginie Grimaldi, has recently had some very political successes: The Gravediggers by Victor Castanet and The Traitor and the Void by Fabrice Lhomme and Gerard Davet. In her new responsibility, Isabelle Saporta will be responsible for continuing the development of the house and its influence in fiction and non-fiction.
An uncertain context
This reorganization comes in a particular context for the world of publishing. The latter is preparing for an upheaval in economic and cultural balances, in the light of the merger between Hachette (Lagardère) and the number two French player in the sector, Editis (Vivendi). Their conditions have been studied for months by European regulators. By the start of the school year in September 2022, the European Commission should finally reveal the scenario favored by Vivendi…
If a merger of the two publishing groups as it stands is to be ruled out, this period of uncertainty arouses many fears. The departure in March of Sophie de Closets from Hachette, which opened the transfer window season for French publishers, then foreshadowed a waltz of the authors of best sellers. If discussions have taken place behind the scenes, no one has yet rushed to change teams. The cards will be redistributed when the terms of rapprochement between the two behemoths are known.
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