Ion Trewin
(1974 Chair)
- Prizes judged
Ion Trewin was a bookman through and through. As a publisher he was responsible for Thomas Keneally’s Schindler’s Ark and in 2006 became director of the Booker Prize.
Trewin, a modest and genial man, cut his teeth in journalism as literary editor of the Times before moving into publishing. He understood that ‘the more people you knew, the better stories you got’, a conviction borne out by his roster of both fiction and non-fiction books by the likes of Antony Beevor and Michael Palin. He was also the biographer of the fruity politician Alan Clark and editor of his diaries, his reasoning being that he was the only person able to read Clark’s handwriting. For the prize, Trewin masterminded the sponsorship of the Man Group.