Pat Kavanagh

Patricia Olive Kavanagh (31 January 1940 – 20 October 2008) was a British literary agent.

Life and work Kavanagh was born in 1940 in Durban, South Africa, where her father was a journalist before and after his service as a fighter pilot in the SAAF during the Second World War. Her mother, Olive (née Le Roux), was a pioneering public health inspector. Her half-sister, Julie Kavanagh, is a ballet critic. Her half-brother, Michael O'Brien, is a geologist living in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

She attended the University of Cape Town, but pursued an interest in acting. She had an uncredited, non-speaking role in Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood after coming to Britain in 1964. She did not get paid for the part, but, as she later recalled, she did "get to snog Richard Burton". It marked the end of her acting career. While working for J. Walter Thompson as a copywriter, she answered an advertisement for a position as a literary agent. She was hired by "A. D. Peters, a legendary agent who showed her the ropes",

Kavanagh became the agent in 1985 of Martin Amis, who left her after 23 years to "throw in his lot" with American agent Andrew Wylie, as part of an effort to get a large advance for his own novel The Information. In 2001, her employer, now known as Peters, Fraser & Dunlop, was purchased by CSS Stellar, a company specializing in sports marketing. Kavanagh was one of several former employees who left the company in September 2007 to form United Agents. Her clients left to join her at the new firm.

Sally Beauman Dirk Bogarde (estate) Duncan Campbell Lindsay Clarke Wendy Cope Russell Davies Michael Dibdin Douglas Dunn James Fenton Sir Christopher Frayling Nicci and Sean French Simon Garfield Andrew Graham-Dixon Robert Harris John Irving Clive James Jackie Kay Leslie Kenton Arthur Koestler (estate) Dame Hermione Lee Laurie Lee (estate) Prue Leith Adam Mars-Jones Brian Moore (estate) Blake Morrison Sir Andrew Motion Chris Mullin John Preston Ruth Rendell Helen Simpson Sandi Toksvig William Trevor, KBE Joanna Trollope (aka Caroline Harvey) Auberon Waugh (estate) Francis Wheen Bee Wilson Jeanette Winterson