Barney Rosset,89, died Tuesday after going under a double
heart valve transplant in Manhattan, New York. Mr. Rosette was an accomplished publisher
who brought Beat poets, French Surrealist, German Expressionist and dramatist literature
to light her in the United States. Rosset
introduced American readers to many significant writers, including Nobel Prize
winners: Samuel Beckett, Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, Kenzaburo Oe and Harold
Pinter.
Mr. Rosset was undoubtedly a controversial figure in the
literary world. His autobiographical
publications of Che Guevara, Malcolm X and Ho Chi Minh, at a time when
Communism and racial instability rocked the U.S, made him a target to the authorities
and radicals at the time. He was sued many times and received death threats on
a regular basis, at one point his office was bombed in Greenwich Village. But
still Mr. Rosset continued publishing literature that his mainstream
competitors dared not touch.
Say what you will about the man, his ideas and passion
however will carry on through his admirers.
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