Marion Boyars
Marion Ursula Boyars, née Asmus, was a British book publisher.Biography
She was born Marion Asmus in New York, United States, daughter of German publisher Johannes Asmus. She attended school in New York and Switzerland, living with her mother and sister, before going on to Keele University to read for a degree in politics, philosophy and economics. After graduating, she married George Lobbenberg and had two daughters. The marriage ended in divorce, and she was subsequently married for a second time to Arthur Boyars.
In 1960 she answered an advertisement in The Bookseller that led to her buying a 50 per cent stake in the small independent publishing company run by John Calder in London. The resultant publishing house, Calder and Boyars, published books by authors including Samuel Beckett, Marguerite Duras, Henry Miller, Eugene Ionesco and William S. Burroughs, until the firm split in 1975, when Boyars formed Marion Boyars Publishers, building up an eclectic list of translated fiction, as well as books on music and cinema.
She died of pancreatic cancer at her home in London in 1999, aged 71.
