The editor, modestly, reveals himself

Luiz Schwarcz's memoirs are narrated from the perspective of a refusal: that of self-praise. The editor, by temperament and principle, seems to cultivate, both voluntarily and involuntarily, modesty.

This characteristic, not by chance, was mentioned in some of the interviews given by the founder and main executive of Companhia das Letras over the last month for the promotion of O Primeiro Leitor. With Luiz Schwarcz, it would be no different.

Schwarcz welcomed me into his office at the publishing house’s headquarters in Itaim Bibi, São Paulo, a few days after appearing on the TV Cultura program Roda Viva. In the center of the circle, he said: “I tried to write a memoir that is not about the grandiose self. I had this modesty: how to write a memoir in which I was not the center.”

Affable in his dealings and careful in his responses, Schwarcz seems, in fact, to be overcome by a certain discomfort when he notices that the interlocutor risks attributing some kind of aura to him: “I really hate the idea of ​​being placed on a certain pedestal.” He prefers, as is evident in The First Reader, to attribute the success of his enterprise to chance, to dreams, to obstinacy and to the people who crossed his path.

The book, which has the subtitle “Essay on Memory,” is a spin-off from the previous book, The Air That I Miss (2021), defined as “a sensitive account of family, guilt, and depression.” Some friends and readers told him that they missed Luiz the editor. It is precisely this Luiz who is revealed in the harmonious set of writings that make up The First Reader. Connecting the essays is something that certainly also unites the author and his potential readers: the affection for the “mysterious product called a book.”

The First Reader. Luiz Schwarcz. Companhia das Letras (304 pages, 74.90 reais)

In Schwarcz's room, there are, of course, many of these products. Not so many that there is no room for engravings, miniatures and other objects, and not so few that one can infer something about the selection from them. Today, Luiz, the reader, exercises his passion during a few hours of the day spent at home and, more slowly, during the holidays.

In the interview, he said that he had finished The Count of Dreams, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, an author who would soon arrive in Brazil to participate in a series of events, and had started The Skin in Bloom, by Vinícius Neves Mariano. It is published by Companhia das Letras and he is published by Alfaguara – one of the group's 19 labels.

The company, founded in 1986, has grown in size. Schwarcz recalls that he founded it “with 140 thousand reais” and that, when he left, he made an unusual decision: he would not work with a distributor. “We had contact with bookstores and would deliver the books. I delivered many packages of books,” he says, smiling. Today, the group publishes 300 books per year and has a 13 thousand square meter warehouse in the Guarulhos region, in Greater São Paulo.

In 2012, Penguin Random House, the world's largest publishing group, bought a 45% stake in the publisher. In 2018, the stake increased to 70%. This led to new imprints and a major change in the company's profile – which reflects the changes the country has undergone in the last 40 years.

Literary friendships. With Paulo Francis, whose affectionate gestures he describes; and with Saramago, who, when he was in São Paulo, stayed at the publisher's house – Image: Personal Collection/Luiz Schwarcz and Denise Andrade

“Today, the highest reading rate,” he says, “is in classes B and C, not in class A.” This is due, in his assessment, both to broader income distribution policies and to government book purchase programs, which play a central role in the formation of readers.

“If Companhia das Letras had continued as it was after the income distribution policies, we would have become a niche publisher. And we would be less interesting,” he says, drawing attention to the risk of elitism, which is common in this activity. In O Primeiro Leitor, he recalls that, when creating popular imprints, the publisher received a lot of criticism – much of it from “readers who represent the working classes.”

“Commercial books may have a more superficial treatment of the characters, but they also have a more agile narrative,” reflects the editor who, when opening his own company, said: “I will only publish books that I enjoy reading.” Alfredo Machado, founder of Editora Record, then replied: “Either this guy’s taste is very bad or he’s going to lose a lot of money.”

How and why to choose what to publish? Although it is not proposed by Schwarcz, this question underlies several of his texts. The work of an editor contains several tasks. And he describes them based on his way of working, but also through beautiful profiles – some brief, others longer – of colleagues in the profession.

Among them are Alfred Knopf, a man passionate about typography and book finishing; Allen Lane, creator of Penguin's pocket collection; and the Brazilians José Olympio, Jorge Zahar and Caio Graco – the latter two, central to Schwarcz's career, deserve the treatment of “foster parents”.

“Finding good books is nothing more than an editor’s duty,” he writes. One of the things an editor must do is look for hidden details in the text. However, in his view, there is no artistic or authorial bias in this. And, whatever the role played, the editor’s merit will always have been “indirect” and “remote.”

For Schwarcz, nothing is more important in the life of this professional than the discovery of a talent. He does not boast about the talents he has discovered, but he does enjoy, in his writings, what his friendships and relationships with some great talents have given him.

“If Companhia das Letras had continued the same way after the income distribution policies, we would have become a niche publisher”

Woven from the senses of friendship, these essays sometimes sound like chronicles – marked, even, by humor, extracted mainly from gaffes. He tells us stories of figures such as Susan Sontag, with whom he shared a taste for classical music; Rubem Fonseca, with whom he had a bitter breakup; Amos Oz, who compared writing a book to pregnancy; Paulo Francis, whose affectionate gestures he reveals; and José Saramago, who, when he came to São Paulo, would stay at his house.

In the author's introverted style, many of these texts are declarations of love both to the people portrayed and to the books – precisely the link that unites him to his real characters.

Books were also the link that connected him to his mother. When his mother was ill and spent long hours in bed, he would read to her. The book that marked his childhood was The Boys from Paul Street, by Ferenc Molnár. “I came back from a camp where I was bullied and had to stay in bed. My father gave me this book, and I identified a lot with the hero.”

Herman Hesse and Charles Dickens were others who paved the way for the young reader who, at the age of 16, would be captivated by The Sad End of Policarpo Quaresma, by Lima Barreto.

Chance – combined with obstinacy and dreams – meant that Barreto was the first to publish a book: the collection A Nova Califórnia: Contos, published by Brasiliense, the place where his future was forged. Decades later, it would be up to his wife, the anthropologist and historian Lilia Schwarcz, to write the great biography of the writer, Lima Barreto – Triste Visionário.

Although the unfolding of emotions accounts for much of the pleasure of reading The First Reader, there is a second layer, very well explored, which is the portrait of the publishing market. Luiz Schwarcz knows everything about it, and does not shy away from sharing its workings with his readers.

“A book is not just a subjective, artisanal or artistic product; it is part of a commercial network involving publishers, bookstores and consumers,” he writes. “So the question that remains is: How can publishers be respectful of all these unique elements of the book in a market where competition for exposure and success is increasingly fierce?”

Within the group he runs, competition is even internal. “Sometimes, a book from the publisher doesn’t have space because of another book from the publisher,” he says. “In the 1990s, we had a good portion of literature books. Today, we see small publishers with an exclusively literary commitment. And the press was also different.”

New configuration. Currently, Amazon's bestseller list has several books that are not new releases – Image: Social Networks

Schwarcz recalls that 30 years ago, it was relatively common for a Companhia das Letras book to be on the cover of the culture sections of the three largest newspapers in the country. “Now that’s unthinkable,” he says. At the time, the publisher’s relationship with the press was so well-oiled that some even criticized him: he was a better promoter than an editor. Nowadays, promotion is largely done through social media, influencers, and events. “There are several things that we find strange,” he admits.

One of the new characteristics of the market is that the success of a work can occur years after its publication. He cites the American Colleen Hoover, who became a phenomenon on TikTok during the pandemic. Her great success, It Ends With Us, from 2016, made it onto the bestseller list in 2022 – and remains there.

“Amazon’s bestseller list, which accounts for 50% of the market, has several books that are not new,” the editor notes. “Books take longer to catch on. That means we have to work on them for a long time.” Authors, in turn, have to take to the stages of literary festivals and, preferably, have social media – Schwarcz has an account to basically follow the publisher’s and Lilia’s posts.

At 69 years old, the publisher who revolutionized the market in which he operates is a far cry from the one he describes as having been, in his youth, arrogant and plagued by episodes of mania. It was the passing of time, certainly, that made him change. But not time alone. Time and books.

The chapter in which he uses William Faulkner and Georges Simenon to reflect on silence and time is luminous: “Perhaps one could even say that literature is nothing more than the encounter of two silences separated in time – that of the writer and that of the reader”. The reader, for Schwarcz, “inhabits the entire blank space of a book”. And if we love books, he says, it is “because they are, outside of the couch, the best mirror of our imperfection”. •

Published in issue no. 1368 of CartaCapital , on July 2, 2025.

This text appears in the printed edition of CartaCapital under the title 'The editor, with modesty, reveals himself'