Heroes & Villains of 2006

By Carmen 

The Independent’s Literator gives its list of who in publishing will get lovely presents over the holidays, and who deserves a lump of coal. Heroes include indie bookstores and publishing, Alison & Busby co-founder Margaret Busby (new recipient of the OBE) Granta publisher Sigrid Rausing and English Council for the Arts literature director Gary McKeone. As for villains? Some of the usual suspects (Judith Regan, Bloombsbury, Hachette) but also Turkey’s article 301, the notorious section of the penal code that criminalizes “insults” to Turkish identity by the likes of Orhan Pamuk, Elif Shafak and Perihan Magden, all of whom were eventually acquitted.