Knopf Hires Lit Hub’s John Freeman As Executive Editor

John Freeman, most recently the Executive Editor of Lit Hub and the former editor of Granta, has joined Knopf as an Executive Editor, effective March 15.

“I’ve long admired John’s achievements as an editor and writer, and I can’t wait for him to bring his excellent, adventurous, wide-ranging taste to our list, where he’ll be acquiring fiction, nonfiction, and poetry,” said Reagan Arthur, EVP and Publisher, Knopf/Pantheon/Schocken. Freeman will report directly to Arthur.

In addition to Lit Hub and Granta, Freeman is the founder of Freeman’s, a literary annual published in several countries around the world. Writers he has worked with include Valeria Luiselli, Sayaka Murata, Mohsin Hamid, Barry Lopez, Marlon James, Lydia Davis, Aminatta Forna, Richard Russo, Rebecca Solnit, Mo Yan, Kamila Shamsie, Anthony Shadid, Julie Otsuka, Natalie Diaz, Tracy K. Smith, Aleksandar Hemon, and Julia Alvarez.

Between 2014 and 2020, Freeman edited a series of anthologies about inequality, concluding with Tales of Two Planets, which focuses on the climate crisis and global inequality. He edited The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story and coedited There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love, both forthcoming in 2021 (the latter from Vintage). He has also written three books of nonfiction and two collections of poems, and his work has been translated into more than twenty languages.

His writing has appeared in many publications, including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The New York Times, The Guardian, Zyzzyva, Alta, Folha de S. Paulo, Gunzo, Corriere della Serra, El Malpensante, and Morgenbladet. Freeman is also an Artist-in-Residence at NYU.