Nan Talese
is a Senior Vice President of Doubleday and the Publisher and Editorial Director of Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, a trade book publishing imprint known for its literary excellence.
Having begun her publishing career at Random House, she subsequently joined Simon & Schuster as an editor, beginning her long editorial relationships with such authors as Margaret Atwood and Ian McEwan, Barry Unsworth and Thomas Keneally, all winners of the prestigious Booker Prize.
It was at Houghton Mifflin, which she joined in 1981 as Executive Editor, eventually becoming Editor-in-Chief and Publisher, that she began her association with Pat Conroy as editor of his novel, The Prince of Tides.
She joined Doubleday as Senior Vice President in 1988, and two years later introduced her author-oriented imprint dedicated to the publication of a select list of quality fiction and nonfiction. The critically acclaimed and bestselling titles she has published since the imprint's inception include There Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlotwitz; Beach Music and My Losing Season by Pat Conroy; Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, and Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood; Amsterdam, Atonement, and Saturday by Ian McEwan; How the Irish Saved Civilization, The Gifts of the Jews, Desire of the Everlasting Hills, and Sailing the Wine Dark Sea by Thomas Cahill; Songs of the Kings by Barry Unsworth; Marie Antoinette by Antonia Fraser; Shakespeare: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd, as well as the works of George Plimpton, Mark Richard, Robert MacNeil, Peter Ackroyd, Kevin Canty, Jennifer Egan, and Adam Haslett, among others.
In 2006 she is publishing 31 Days by Barry Werth, a book about the first 31 days of the Ford Administration after Nixon's resignation, as well as novels by Peter Ackroyd, Marti Leimbach, and Yasmina Khadra.
Mrs. Talese is married to author Gay Talese, whose new book A Writer's Life will be published in the spring. They have two daughters: Pamela, a painter, and Catherine, the photography director at Absolute magazine.
