Candida Donadio

Candida Donadio (October 22, 1929 – January 20, 2001) was an American literary agent known for representing many authors affiliated with post-modernism and shaping American experimental literature to come particularly through her work with Thomas Pynchon and Joseph Heller.

Donadio was referred to in the mid-1960s as part of what Esquire called the "red-hot center" of contemporary literature, after shepherding books such as Joseph Heller's Catch-22 (1961), Jessica Mitford's The American Way of Death (1963), and Thomas Pynchon's V. (1963) through successful publishing campaigns.

Over her career Donadio represented many writers, including Pynchon, Heller, Mitford, Mario Puzo, John Cheever, Philip Roth, Cormac McCarthy, Bruce Jay Friedman, Robert Stone, Michael Herr, William Gaddis and Bernard Malamud. Her parents were immigrants from Sicily. After some time, Donadio convinced the literary magazine New World Writing to accept the first chapter, which increased Heller's confidence in the work. In interviews, Donadio claimed that the number was changed to her birthday as a gesture, though Robert Gottlieb rejected that narrative entirely as "lying" in his 2016 autobiography. She helped negotiate the sale of his first book, Goodbye, Columbus to Houghton Mifflin, boosting the publisher's advance offer from $1,000 to $2,500 by leveraging a counteroffer from Viking Press. Donadio served as Roth's agent from 1958 until 1972. While representing him, she notably negotiated large publishing and film rights contracts for Portnoy's Complaint. In a 1972 letter after firing her as his agent, Roth wrote that "unlike Portnoy, I have no complaints," though biographer Blake Bailey speculates that her "very mothering" style and Roth's "general aloofness" had worn on the relationship.

After Jaffe sold his agency in 1961, Donadio moved to Russell & Volkening, where she worked until 1968.

Donadio's namesake agency ran for more than 20 years after her retirement and 17 years after her death, when it finally filed for bankruptcy in 2018. The company's bookkeeper of 20 years, Darin Webb, was sentenced to two years in prison later that same month, for embezzling 3.4 million dollars from the agency.

In 1984, Donadio sold 120 letters written by Pynchon to herself between 1962 and 1983 to Carter Burden for $45,000. When this came to public attention in 1998 it became the subject of some controversy.

Donadio was portrayed by Lola Glaudini in the 2022 show The Offer detailing the development and production of Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 film The Godfather based on the novel by Donadio's client Mario Puzo.