Clare Alexander of Aitken Alexander announced the death of her business partner, literary agent Gillon Aitken “after a period of ill health.” She writes: “A towering figure in so many of our lives, publishing has lost a great agent from a brilliant generation. He was a wise counsel, a true intellectual and an irreplaceable friend.”
She includes testimonials from a number of clients, including Sebastian Faulks: “Gillon was one of my closest friends. He was was one of my closest friends. He was also my literary agent for 30 years…. As an agent, he was creative, mischievous and drove a hard bargain; but he was also realistic.” And Helen Fielding calls him, “the quintessential British gentleman,” saying, “he was a rare and irreplaceable treasure in the Literary World.”