Manuel Arroyo-Stephens, the incandescent editor, dies at the age of 75

The founder of the mythical publishing house Turner, ‘discoverer’ in Spain of Chavela Vargas and one of the most exquisite independent publishers, dies at the age of 75. The editor and writer Manuel Arroyo at his home in the mountains of Madrid.

In his own way, Manuel Arroyo-Stephens became (without haste) the tenant of a non-existent country. A country that he only inhabited once all those, all those with whom he loved died (or fell silent). Educated, lucid and disappointed, launched a way of being an editor when in 1970 he started to roll a fragrant old-fashioned bookstore in Madrid, incidentally causing some short circuits in the bacon atmosphere of the old and second-hand book of that time. The adventure did not last long because a year later he founded the Turner bookstore, then English Turner Bookshop, and two years later he added the challenge of a publisher that he kept independent. I found that making books was almost better than fiddling with them.

Manuel Arroyo-Stephens, a quarter of a liter of Irish blood on his mother’s side, from ’45 from Bilbao, with training in Law and Economics, has died at the age of 75 in Madrid. He did so much to broaden his own life and his passion for books that he became one of the most exquisite publishers from a very young age. Neat, cultured, elegant, capable of living generously and with the discretion that the abundance of grace and sense requires. Jams apost al best seller, his game table was different. In the heat of the difficult poet, Jos Bergamn acquired unusual knowledge of irony (which he added to his own), contempt, disappointment, vital and editorial independence, and the magic that fits in the bullfighting of Rafael de Paula, Curro Romero, Antonio Ordez, who were followed by so many squares.

Read the entire article here: Archyde

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