VIRAGONE
Pioneering feminist publisher Carmen Callil has died aged 84. Born in Australia and raised in a stuffy convent, working on feminist magazine Spare Rib inspired her to form one of the earliest female publishing companies. She named her business Virago, after the Latin for a female warrior, and it was notable for publishing both contemporary woman authors and returning underappreciated yesteryears to print. After paving the way for many female authors with her publishing, she turned to the pen herself and released Bad Faith in 2004, a sobering and incisive investigation into why her late former psychiatrist hated her father. It turned out said psychiatrist’s father was a Nazi collaborator in Vichy France. Pan Breed brought Callil into the DDP fold in 2019, after adroitly noting her long-term cancer struggle from a BBC4 doc. Dames theme team There is nothing like a dame (and the Women who gives them it) took her under their wing since, and reaps the reward.
Carmen Callil
15 July 1938 – 17 October 2022, aged 84
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