Katerina Fragou

First of all, thank you very much for agreeing to have this interview. It is a great pleasure to have you here. Literary agents are a rare kind, if I may say so, in Greece at least, so it’s a great pleasure to have you here for this interview.

I thank you, too, for the invitation, the honor, the interest.

So a first question: How does one decide to become a literary agent? How did you decide it? How did it come about?

I’m Greek, I grew up in Greece, and I went to Paris for my MA studies, where I spent several years, because I did three MA degrees. That took some years, so I lived there. And then I wanted to stay in France. And I wanted to visit Greece often, but not on holiday. I wanted to be involved in books, so I found out that this profession existed and I decided to go for it. I had no other knowledge of the profession until then, other than sort of what it is.

Ηow did you get started? What was your first job or collaboration?

My first job came about like this: I went to a publishing house in France and I asked if they wanted to suggest some books to be sold in Greece. There was an old lady there, who was very happy to teach me everything – the basics, not everything, but without the basics you can’t start – and she gave me two books. Then I came to Greece – it was 24 years ago, there were no e-mails or PDFs, right? So I brought the books which I had read to Greece and talked about them. One was sold to a Greek publisher, and then, when I got back to France, I told her, “Well, we sold it. Now what?” and she explained to me how to make the offer, what to ask for, etc. When I had come to Greece, I had also asked a Greek publisher which Greek books they would suggest publishing abroad. And that’s how I got started. Just like that.

So you started out in the profession. And how do you find the books you’d like to suggest either here or abroad? Based on what criteria or in what way in general? What is the process of selecting books?

The process of selecting books is quite subjective, which, of course, is enriched by the knowledge of the market, and with that in mind you select the books. You meet the publishers and discuss what they like, what they would like to do, and they can tell from their audience what could be successful, what could resonate, what could sell a little better. The subjects that personally interest me more, are also a criterion. So, different elements play a role when you make a choice. There are also friends and acquaintances who read books and I may hear something from them. Newspapers as well, e-newspapers now, and so on. So you have continuous information through publishers’ catalogs for example, or information that you hear completely randomly or you specifically look for.

Which part of this process would you say is the most difficult? Finding a book? Suggesting a book to the publisher?

The hardest part is selling it. Finding a book is quite easy. There are so many books in all the languages of the world. You can also suggest it very easily, because you no longer have to make an appointment or a call. You can send PDFs, even via group e-mails, so you can suggest a book in five minutes all over Greece, to most Greek publishers. That was not possible when I started my job. The hardest thing, though, is to convince them to buy this book. That’s the hardest thing.

And what ways does a literary agent have to solve this problem?

First of all, persistence. And patience, one should invest time in it. It’s also good to have original ideas and views on each book, so that you can see it from many angles and present those angles, to draw the interest in reading and publishing it.

As you mentioned, an agent’s job involves, among other things, a close relationship with publishing houses.

Yes.

What is that relationship like? How would you describe it?

Multifaceted, because there are many publishers and they’re different people. With some publishers you have a very close relationship, with others you have a very distant relationship. There are publishers I’ve never seen and we only communicate by e-mail and others who have payment problems, so you have bad relationships, because, ok, you can do everything but not get paid? No way. So it’s a multifaceted relationship with many aspects. Like all human relationships, really.

Do you have any contact with translators? Have you happened to collaborate with them?

Well, an agent works a lot with translators in order to be informed… Greece is a small market. You have to deal with a lot of books, because from each book, even if it is sold, you will make relatively little money. So you have to sell hundreds of books a year. In order to make those sales, one has a broad selection of books to make, which involves a lot of reading and a lot of effort. And you can’t devote too much time to so many other things, which you would normally have to do. I would have to be five different people. I only have a part-time assistant, because, unfortunately, it’s a profession that doesn’t bring enough income, in Greece at least. So I slowly started to have contacts with translators, but mainly with those who translate into foreign languages to help Greek writers, who are even harder to sell than foreign writers in Greece. Big publishing houses already have translators who translate for them, so I don’t need to suggest translators to them. Small publishing houses might ask me to put them in contact with new or noted translators. New and very small publishing houses. So my relationship with translators is close, but for me it is not satisfactory, it could be broader. My dream is to send information about the books I represent to the translators as well. I do send information to a few, but I know they don’t have time to read it.

What about the authors of the books you choose?

I rarely have contact with foreign authors, because I basically represent foreign publishers, which act as a go-between. With Greek authors, my relationship ranges from close to quite distant. I also represent some of them through publishers, so I don’t have direct contact, I meet them only once. I might meet them once a year or not even once a year. But with others, after many years of working together, we have become friends, of course. I also work on the books of some of them, so we have very close contact when they give me a new book. I work with originals, too, because I’m also a primary agent, which means I introduce some authors in Greece. We often work on their texts together and have very close contact for a while.

And how are things regarding sales of Greek literature abroad? Are there any difficulties concerning the Greek language, the Greek literature abroad?

There are enormous difficulties, because, first of all, Greek has a different alphabet. So even if a book is on the desk of a foreign publisher, it means nothing, they don’t even know the name of the author. The second difficulty is that Greek is a small language, so there aren’t many translators who translate from Greek into foreign languages, and, correspondingly, we don’t have many readers in each publishing house. Moreover, the Greek books that have been published in foreign countries haven’t had great commercial success so far so as to be widely accepted and bought by foreign publishers. So all these problems bring about difficulties. We don’t get any support for translation, we don’t have a book policy to the outside world, that is, to talk about authors and propose ideas, to talk about the ideas that are spreading in Greece, in literature, in literary genres. All that doesn’t exist.

But are there countries or markets that are more friendly, so to speak, regarding Greek literature, that have more access to Greek literature?

Yes, first of all, France, also Turkey… France is very open to Greek literature and the first step is usually made there. I don’t think it’s just because I’m French-speaking and I know the publishers better. I don’t know them all well anymore, because things change, they are not always the same people. Some are still the same. But France has been one of the most open markets for many years, for the whole 20th century that is, regarding Greek literature. And that’s because they have a philhellenic audience and a philhellenic spirit in general. After the Junta, many Greeks moved there, so we are quite close. There are also the antiquarians, so to speak, the philhellenes who occupy themselves with antiquity. There are such people in Germany and England as well, but they are not readers of literature.

And a closing interview question. How do you imagine the future of the book and of translation? What will things look like in the future? Will they get better or…?

I believe things will get better. Greece, because of or thanks to the crisis, has become a little bit better known, so there are already a little bit more sales. There is also a more creative literary scene. These two things push for better sales. But there will also be difficulties in the future, because there are too many… I mean, if we look at the very distant future, the languages will probably be unified. I already see that a little bit, e.g. the Dutch don’t translate much English literature anymore, because they all speak English. And there are also Greek academics who have studied abroad, have lived there for many years and end up writing better in English, or the language spoken in the country they live in, than in Greek. I don’t think all languages will become one, but there will probably be fewer translations. However, translations are certainly great enrichment. And when I say I imagine that at some point translations may not be so many, this concerns next century, right? Many years from now, none of us will experience this.

Thank you very much for your time.

You’re welcome. I thank you, too.