Werner Mark Linz (6 April 1935 – 9 February 2013) was a German-American publisher who specialised in educational and international publishing in the Americas, Europe and the Middle East. He was born in Cologne, Germany, in 1935. He studied

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including Philosophy, certain fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term "humanities" referred to the study of classical literature a ...

at the University of Frankfurt and continued his education in the United States. In 1960 he moved permanently to New York and became a naturalised United States citizen. Linz held senior executive position in New York with Herder & Herder,

McGraw-Hill McGraw Hill is an American education science company that provides educational content, software, and services for students and educators across various levels—from K-12 to higher education and professional settings. They produce textbooks, ...

, and the Seabury Press in the 1960s and 1970s, before establishing the Continuum and Crossroad publishing companies, and serving as the Continuum Group's president and publisher in New York from 1979 to 1999. He was the co-founder in 2000 of the

Continuum International Publishing Group Continuum International Publishing Group was an academic publisher of books with editorial offices in London and New York City. It was purchased by Nova Capital Management in 2005. In July 2011, it was taken over by Bloomsbury Publishing. , all n ...

in London and New York. In 1984 Linz became director of the

American University in Cairo Press The American University in Cairo Press (AUCP, AUC Press) is the leading English-language publisher in the Middle East. The largest translator of Arabic literature in the world, AUC Press has a reputation for carefully selecting and translating t ...

, first for two years, and then from 1995 until 2011. On returning to Cairo in 1995 he collaborated with

Naguib Mahfouz Naguib Mahfouz Abdelaziz Ibrahim Ahmed Al-Basha (, ; 11 December 1911 – 30 August 2006) was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature. In awarding the prize, the Swedish Academy described him as a writer "who, through wo ...

to establish the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, an annual literary prize for a work of fiction in Arabic, with the guarantee of translation and publication in English for the winner. Among his authors at the AUC Press were Naguib Mahfouz, the first Arabic writer to win the

Nobel Prize in Literature The Nobel Prize in Literature, here meaning ''for'' Literature (), is a Swedish literature prize that is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, "in ...

Ahmed Zewail Ahmed Hassan Zewail (February 26, 1946 – August 2, 2016) was an Egyptian-American chemist, known as the "father of femtochemistry". He was awarded the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on femtochemistry and became the first Egyptian a ...

, who won the

Nobel Prize in Chemistry The Nobel Prize in Chemistry () is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outst ...

, archaeologist

Zahi Hawass Zahi Abass Hawass (; born May 28, 1947) is an Egyptians, Egyptian archaeology, archaeologist, Egyptology, Egyptologist, and former Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities (Egypt), Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, a position he held twice. He has ...

and Pope Shenouda III, head of the Coptic Church. Linz retired from the AUC Press in 2011, at the age of seventy-six. He was an active member of the

Association of American Publishers The Association of American Publishers (AAP) is the national trade association of the American book publishing industry. AAP lobbies for book, journal and education publishers in the United States. AAP members include most of the major commercial ...

, the American

Society for Scholarly Publishing The Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) is a professional society, founded in 1978, dedicated to promoting and advancing communication and networking among all sectors of the scholarly communications community. It has approximately 1,100 membe ...

and the Publishers Club in New York. A long-time resident of

Rye Rye (''Secale cereale'') is a grass grown extensively as a grain, a cover crop and a forage crop. It is grown principally in an area from Eastern and Northern Europe into Russia. It is much more tolerant of cold weather and poor soil than o ...

, New York, he was an avid sailor and member of the American Yacht Club.

References

External links

Obituary in ''Banipal''Arabic Literature Blog''Egypt Independent''''Publishing Perspectives''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Linz, Mark 1935 births 2013 deaths 20th-century German publishers (people)