Jarvis Cocker becomes major publishing company Editor

Pulp non-fiction: Jarvis Cocker becomes editor for Faber

Singer moves beyond Pulp to take a 'broad commissioning role' with upmarket publisher

Alison Flood
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 12 October 2011 12.57 BST


Jarvis Cocker: 'broad commissioning role'

Home to 12 Nobel laureates and six Booker prize winners, venerable publisher Faber & Faber is now looking to bring a little Britpop magic to its list after hiring Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker as its new editor-at-large.

The appointment will see Cocker given an open brief to acquire books for a small list at Faber from January 2012. He will be working closely with Faber editors Lee Brackstone and Hannah Griffiths in what the publisher said would be a "broad commissioning role" which it hopes will help expand its music publishing. Faber is already releasing Cocker's first book, Mother, Brother, Lover, a collection of his lyrics complete with commentary, next week, with future titles on its music list to include rocker Julian Cope's Copendium and James Fearnley's memoir of a lifetime spent as accordion player in The Pogues.

"Jarvis felt like a natural fit with the Faber sensibility, both as author and editor, and I'm sure the small list of books he will develop will represent his eccentric and yet popular touch," said Brackstone. "We now have an excellent portfolio of authors from the pop world and our intention is to develop these relationships and continue to build a reputation as the home for exciting and original writing on music." (Brackstone caused a minor stir last year with an open letter to Morrissey, pleading to let Faber publish his rumoured memoirs because, he said, the former Smiths singer belonged "in the House of Eliot".)

Cocker said he was "proud, and more than a little excited, to be asked to work with Faber in an editorial capacity", and that it was his "dearest hope that we will produce some fantastic books together".

The musician follows in the footsteps of Who guitarist Pete Townshend, who worked as an editor at Faber in the 1980s. He is just the latest big name to be given an editorial role by a publisher, with HarperCollins announcing yesterday the appointment of Mystic River author Dennis Lehane as editor, following its signing of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain last month.

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