Marilyn Malin

Marilyn Malin (died 2022) was a British literary agent, an editor and a publisher; she was the managing director of Methuen Children's Books.

Early life and education

Marilyn Malin's parents were Irene (née Littenberg) and Albert Malin; she was Jewish, and born and brought up in Golders Green, London. She had at least one sister.

Career

Malin obtained a job as a secretary at the publishers Blackie and Son in the 1950s. Malin was described as one of the "eminent editorial directors of her time". Her acceptance, in 1966 with Olive Jones, of The River Kings by Max Fatchen, has been described as the result of "a culture of calculated risk".

In the 1980s, Malin left Methuen to become a literary agent. She was editor for Rosemary Manning, and wrote about her for the journal Bookbird. She published Michael Morpurgo's Warhorse, and books by Floella Benjamin, John Agard and James Berry. Malin was the agent for Kjartan Poskitt, She was a mentor to the illustrator Jane Pinkney. Malin commissioned a book written by Alison Prince with 21 primary-school children.

In 1986, Malin started her own publishing imprint, Marilyn Malin Books, in partnership with André Deutsch.

Personal life

Malin died in 2022, aged 86.

Publications

"Ruth Manning-Saunders: a memoir", in Bookbird, 1989 (27,1), pp. 9–10.