Miriam Gross

Miriam Gross

Miriam Gross, Lady Owen is a British literary editor and writer.[1][2]

She was the deputy literary editor of The Observer from 1969–81, the women's editor of The Observer from 1981–84, the arts editor of The Daily Telegraph from 1986–91, and the literary editor of The Sunday Telegraph from 1991-2005.[3][4][5][6] She was senior editor (and co-founder) of Standpoint magazine from 2008 to 2011.[7] Writing in The Spectator (6 June 1988), the historian Paul Johnson said that "the beautiful and elegant Miriam Gross is queen of the lit eds."

From 1986-88, she edited Channel Four's Book Choice.[8] She is also the editor of two collections of essays, The World of George Orwell (1971) and The World of Raymond Chandler (1977).

While at The Observer, she conducted a series of interviews,[9] with, among others, the poet Philip Larkin,[10] playwright Harold Pinter, thriller writer John le Carré, painters Francis Bacon and David Hockney,[11] Nobel Prize-winning Russian poet Joseph Brodsky, novelist Anthony Powell, philosopher and historian Sir Isaiah Berlin, philosopher A.J. Ayer, and Stalin’s daughter Svetlana Stalin.[12] (The interviews with Larkin, Bacon, Pinter and Powell were republished in her 2012 memoir, An Almost English Life: Literary, and Not so Literary Recollections; the interview with Larkin was republished in Larkin's Required Writing and that with Pinter in Ian Smith, ed., Pinter in the Theatre.)

Gross has contributed to The Spectator, as the magazine's diarist,[13] and has written an occasional column for the Financial Times.[14] She has also served as a judge on the Booker prize[15] and on the George Orwell memorial prize.

As mayor of London, Boris Johnson commissioned Gross to write a policy paper on failing literacy in London schools.[16][17] She is the author of a memoir, An Almost English Life: Literary, and Not so Literary Recollections.[18][19][20]

Family and education

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She was born in Jerusalem in 1938.[21][22] Her Jewish parents, Kurt May and Vera May (née Feinberg), fled Nazi Germany,[23] but two of her grandparents as well as many other relatives in Germany who did not escape were murdered in the Holocaust.[24] She grew up in Jerusalem,[25][26] Switzerland and England. In England, she was educated at the progressive Dartington Hall School[27] and at Oxford University where she read English literature at St Anne's College. She was married to the literary and theatrical critic and author John Gross from 1965–1988.[28] The couple had two children, Tom Gross and Susanna Gross.[29] Her son-in-law is author John Preston.[30] Since 1993, she has been married to Sir Geoffrey Owen, the former editor of the Financial Times and formerly one of England’s leading tennis players.[31]

References

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  1. ^ Johnson, Daniel (5 October 2012). "Last and best of the great literary editors". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
  2. ^ Sexton, David (11 September 2012). "The formidable literary editor Miriam Gross talks to David Sexton about what makes a writer and the agony of love". The (London) Evening Standard. Retrieved 26 April 2014.
  3. ^ Sutherland, John (29 August 2012). "Miriam Gross's damnably readable memoir". The New Statesman. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
  4. ^ Gross, Miriam (20 September 2012). "Miriam Gross Returns to Jerusalem". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 21 January 2020.
  5. ^ Gross, Miriam (8 September 2012). "Living in England as an outsider". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 April 2014.
  6. ^ Skidelsky, Will (9 September 2012). "An Almost English Life". The Observer. Retrieved 26 April 2014.
  7. ^ Pieces for Standpoint by Miriam Gross
  8. ^ Brookner, Anita (1 September 2012). "A seamless whole". The Spectator. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
  9. ^ Christiansen, Rupert (23 August 2012). "An Almost English Life: Literary, and Not so Literary Recollections". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
  10. ^ Boland, John (27 July 1996). "Nothing can happen anywhere". The Irish Times.
  11. ^ "David Hockney's 1979 view of the gallery, as told to Miriam Gross". Standpoint (originally published in The Observer, 1979). April 2017. Archived from the original on 17 January 2021. Retrieved 19 January 2021.
  12. ^ "'Over me my father's shadow hovers': an interview with Stalin's daughter Svetlana". Standpoint (originally published in The Observer, 1984). January 2012.
  13. ^ Diary columns by Miriam Gross for The Spectator, spectator.com. Accessed 8 April 2022.
  14. ^ Columns for the Financial Times by Miriam Gross
  15. ^ Prodger, Michael (11 October 2008). "Booker Prize must prove it hasn't lost the plot". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 25 October 2011.
  16. ^ Johnson, Boris (19 July 2010). "Illiteracy is bad for us – so why don't we do something about it?". The Daily Telegraph.
  17. ^ Williams, Rachel (19 July 2010). "Primary school 'street' talk breeding illiteracy, claims thinktank". The Guardian.
  18. ^ Gross, Miriam (20 September 2012). "Miriam Gross Returns to Jerusalem". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 21 January 2020.
  19. ^ "Miriam Gross's diary: Why use Freud and Kurt Weill to promote Wagner?". The Spectator. 7 March 2015. Retrieved 30 March 2017.
  20. ^ Odone, Cristina (3 September 2012). "Illiteracy is bad for us – so why don't we do something about it?". The Sunday Telegraph. Archived from the original on 3 September 2012.
  21. ^ Gross, Miriam (7 September 2012). "Living in England as an outsider". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 January 2020.
  22. ^ "Miriam Gross interview" (PDF). NPG. Retrieved 8 September 2023.
  23. ^ Jerusalem: the Biography (By Simon Sebag Montefiore, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2011, page 530) [1]
  24. ^ Tait, Robert (11 October 2016). "Fate of former Schindler's list factory is met with Czech ambivalence". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 December 2016.
  25. ^ Gross, Miriam (September 2010). "A Jerusalem Childhood". Standpoint. Retrieved 25 October 2011.
  26. ^ “Our Israel Diary, 1978”: Travels to Israel with Harold Pinter (by Antonia Fraser) (One World books, 2017; page 8)
  27. ^ Gross, Miriam (May 2011). "An Experimental Education". Standpoint. Archived from the original on 17 October 2011. Retrieved 25 October 2011.
  28. ^ "John Gross". The Daily Telegraph. 10 January 2011. Retrieved 25 October 2011.
  29. ^ Sexton, David (11 September 2012). "The formidable literary editor Miriam Gross talks to David Sexton about what makes a writer and the agony of love". The (London) Evening Standard. Retrieved 26 April 2014.
  30. ^ "Susanna Gross". The English Bridge Union. Retrieved 8 September 2023.
  31. ^ Johnson, Daniel (5 October 2012). "Last and best of the great literary editors". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 8 September 2023.
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