Aitken Alexander Primary Agents:


Gillon Aitken
Clare Alexander
Lesley Thorne
Ayesha Karim
Matthew Hamilton
Andrew Kidd
Anna Stein

Our associated agents:

Anthony Sheil
Mary Pachnos
Lucy Luck

Gillon Aitken's early career was in publishing, latterly as Managing Director of Hamish Hamilton, which he left in the mid-1970's to found the literary agency which became Aitken Alexander Associates, to which he has since been dedicated.  His authors include: Pat Barker, Sarah Bradford, Gordon Burn, Sebastian Faulks, Helen Fielding, Germaine Greer, Jonathan Raban, Piers Paul Read, Nicholas Shakespeare and A. N. Wilson.

Clare Alexander became an agent in 1998 after more than 20 years as a publisher. Clare specializes in literary and commercial fiction and novelists whom she represents include Kitty Aldridge, Clare Allan, Clare Clark, Emma Darwin, Sarah Dunant, Susan Elderkin, Diana Evans, Julia Gregson, Mark Haddon, Mohammed Hanif , Virginia Ironside, Liz Jensen, Lucy Kellaway, Jennie Rooney, James Scudamore, Gillian Slovo, Frank Tallis, Jane Elizabeth Varley and Penny Vincenzi. She also represents best selling children’s book author Louise Rennison. She represents a number of writers of narrative non-fiction, including Philip Ball, John Cornwell, Mary Laven, Caroline Moorehead, Lyndal Roper, Ben Shephard, Nicholas Stargardt, Rory Stewart, Adam Tooze and Andrew Wilson, and specialises in the areas of history and memoir. Clare was vice president of the Association of Authors’ Agents from 2004 – 2006 and president named 2006 – 2008. She was named Orion Publishing Group Literary Agent of the Year at the 2007 British Book Industry Awards and was awarded the 2008 Kim Scott Walwyn Prize, which honours outstanding achievements by women in publishing. Clare is a member of the Women's Committee of the Orange Prize.

Lesley Thorne joined Aitken Alexander Associates in the Autumn of 1999, after two years working in an editorial role at Hamish Hamilton and Viking, and before that at Fourth Estate. She has handled film and television rights for the agency since 2003 but continues to maintain a small literary client list which includes Nick Stone, Willy Vlautin, Stav Sherez, Nicholas Blincoe and Peter Hook.
Ayesha Karim joined Aitken Alexander Associates in November 2002 after abandoning a successful career in ebusiness design and consultancy in San Francisco and New York. She started as the assistant to Gillon Aitken during which time she worked closely with Germaine Greer and began to develop a careful list of fine fiction and strong non fiction where her interests lie in memoir, travelogue, history and current affairs. Her clients include Edna Fernandes, Manju Kapur, Roopa Farooki, Manjushree Thapa, Michele Roberts and Sadanand Dhume.
Matthew Hamilton started his career at Bloomsbury, where he set up the paperback division and went on to become Publishing Director and a member of the PLC Board. He published authors such as T.C. Boyle, Richard Price and Peter Biskind. He's interested in fiction and non-fiction, and his clients include Timothy Albone, Luke Bainbridge, Lloyd Bradley, Paul Brannigan, Tim Brannigan, Matthew Collin, John Crace, Simon Day, Sam Delaney, Seb Emina, Marcus Gray, Dave Haslam, Dom Joly, Lisa Lynch, The London Review of Breakfasts, Joel McIver, Ben Moser, Andrew Mueller, James Nice, Ronan O'Brien, Alex Ogg, Danny Rampling, Redstone Press, Byron Rogers, Clara Salaman, and Paul Willetts.
Andrew Kidd, who joined the agency as a director in April 2008, was previously Publisher of Picador and Macmillan, where his authors included John Banville, Don DeLillo, Bret Easton Ellis, Alan Hollinghurst, Jackie Kay, Matthew Kneale, Andrew Marr, Edward St Aubyn and Graham Swift. Before that, at Penguin, he published Jonathan Safran Foer, Sandor Marai, Andrew Rawnsley and John Updike amongst others. Andrew represents both fiction and non-fiction, and his authors include Anthea Church, Duncan Fallowell, Daniel Hind, Molly McGrann, Tessa McWatt, Kamran Nazeer, Tom Penn, Paul Pickering, Charles Rangeley-Wilson, Max Schaefer, Aatish Taseer, Robert Twigger and Pippa Wright.
Anna Stein, who joined the agency in June 2009 as a senior agent heading up the New York office of AAA, was most recently an agent and foreign rights manager at the Irene Skolnick Literary Agency, while she also sold foreign rights for the Gail Ross Literary Agency and the Larry Weissman Agency. Previously, she worked for Donadio & Olson, Inc. Her clients include Yoko Ogawa, Anya Ulinich, Chloe Aridjis, Richard Brody, Claire Dederer, and Jonas Hassen Khemiri.


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