Vera Michalski-Hoffmann (born 5 November 1954) is a Swiss billionaire businesswoman, significant shareholder in Roche Holding[1] and publisher. She is the president of several publishing houses in Switzerland, France and Poland, grouped together in a holding company, Libella SA, based in Lausanne.[2][3][4] She founded the Jan Michalski Foundation in Montricher, that awards the annual Jan Michalski Prize in literature.[3][5]
Biography
Until the age of 20, Vera Hoffmann (of Swiss and Austrian origin)[6] lived in Camargue, at the Tour du Valat research facility, 28km (17mi) from Arles. At that time, the centre's activities included clearly a communist vision of common life, an agricultural dimension and its electricity was supplied by a generator.[7] Her father, Luc Hoffmann (1923–2016), founded the centre. Equipped with a PhD in zoology, he dedicated much of his time, thoughts and funds to preserving and protecting nature.[8] In 1961, he and Peter Scott, son of the famous South Pole explorer, founded the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Now supported by the family's MAVA Foundation, this research centre has become an important international hub for the conservation and study of Mediterranean wetlands. The Foundation, which owns nearly 2,500 hectares of wetlands in the Camargue region, is responsible for protecting the area.[9]
During her childhood, Vera Hoffmann attended a private school created by her parents and accredited by the French authorities. Approximately 14 children, including Vera's sister Maja Hoffmann and brother André Hoffmann were schooled there. Most of the other students were children of people who worked at the ornithological facility, along with a few poor neighbours.
Vera's mother, Daria Razumovsky, was the descendant of Austrian and Russian immigrants who fled their homeland during the Russian Revolution. The story of her grandmother's childhood (from 1914 to 1919) was published and translated in 1990. In 2004, the diary kept by Vera's mother and two aunts was also published.
Vera studied at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva where she began working on her thesis entitled “Le phénomène des compagnons de route du communisme en France, de 1928 à 1939” (The phenomenon of Communism's fellow travelers in France from 1928 to 1939”).[10] However, she decided to interrupt her doctorate studies to focus on publishing.[11]
in 2018 she took over a historic hotel in Warsaw, rebranded as the Raffles Hotel Europejski.[14]
Her wealth is derived from inheritance, and she owns 1.5% of Roche Holding.[15]
Publishing
In 1986, Vera Michalski created Les Éditions Noir sur Blanc in Montricher with her husband, Jan Michalski. The idea was to publish writers –essentially of Slavic origin– and to offer fiction (novels, short stories, plays and poetry) as well as non-fiction (essays, documents, eye-witness accounts, personal journal and memoires) bearing witness to critical periods in the history of countries such as Poland and Russia.[16]
Subsequently, the couple acquired several publishing houses that were later brought together under the holding group Libella, based in Lausanne. The holding now includes Noir sur Blanc, Les Éditions Phébus, Buchet-Chastel and Le Temps Apprivoisé, among others.[17]
In Poland, Michalski owns Oficyna Literacka (Noir sur Blanc) in Warsaw and Wydawnictwo LiterackieKraków.[17][18]
In 1991, Michalski bought The Polish Bookshop in Paris, called Librairie Polonaise, at 123 Boulevard Saint-Germain.[19]
Although Michalski is heiress to the significant family fortune of Luc Hoffmann, she says she is careful to keep her publishing business separate from her philanthropic initiatives, notably the Maison de l'écriture (writing house) in Montricher, Switzerland. She does, however, admit that she can take certain risks which other, less financially secure publishers might not, and she can also publish niche-target works. Still, all her editorial projects are intended to be profitable.[20]
Through her publishing business, Michalski aims to provide a bridge between Eastern and Western cultures. She and her husband began working in this area in 1986, before the Fall of the Berlin Wall, when cultural exchanges were rather difficult. She speaks five languages fluently (French, German, English, Spanish and Polish) and some Russian.
In the autumn of 2007, Vera Michalski announced the creation of the Jan Michalski Foundation in Montricher, Switzerland. This foundation acquired a former summer camp and converted it into a centre welcoming writers. Several of them can stay simultaneously and for different lengths of time, never to exceed one year, however. Later, an exhibit space, an auditorium for concerts, symposiums, lectures or screenings and a library were added. The foundation awards certain writers with grants and from time to time underwrites certain publishing projects.[22]
Vera Michalski also created the Jan Michalski International Prize for Literature, designed to recognize great work, regardless of the genre (novels, short stories, essays, books on art, etc.). The prize is worth 50,000 Swiss francs.[23]
She supports the promotion of classical music and is a member of Honors of the Swiss classical music festival Les Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad.[24]
Le Nouvel Économiste - n°1359 - Du 28 septembre au 4 octobre, Vera Michalski, La mécène apprivoisée
La Fin de ma Russie, Catherine Sayn-Wittgenstein, translated from the German by Vera Michalski and published by Noir sur Blanc in 1990, is now published in pocket at Phoebus coll. Libretto.
Nos journaux cachés, Maria, Daria and Olga Razumovsky, edition Noir sur Blanc, 2004
Mont Blanc was a Téméraire class 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the French Navy. In the course of her career, she was renamed no less than four times, reflecting the tides of politics with the French Revolution.
Józef Czapski was a Polish artist, author, and critic, as well as an officer of the Polish Army. As a painter, he is notable for his membership in the Kapist movement, which was heavily influenced by Cézanne. Following the Polish Defensive War, he was made a prisoner of war by the Soviets and was among the very few officers to survive the Katyn massacre of 1940. Following the Sikorski-Mayski Agreement, he was an official envoy of the Polish government searching for the missing Polish officers in Russia. After World War II, he remained in exile in the Paris suburb of Maisons-Laffitte, where he was among the founders of Kultura monthly, one of the most influential Polish cultural journals of the 20th century.
Catherine Belkhodja is a French artist, actress and film director.
Jan Michalski Prize for Literature is a Swiss literary prize for any work of fiction or non-fiction published anywhere in the world in any language. It is meant to recognize authors from around the world and world literature in general. The jury is multicultural and multilingual in composition.
Philippe Rahmy was a Swiss poet and writer.
Agata Tuszynska is a Polish writer, poet and journalist.
Hans Lukas "Luc" Hoffmann was a Swiss ornithologist, conservationist, and philanthropist. He co-founded the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), helped establish the Ramsar Convention for the protection of wetlands, and set up the Tour du Valat research centre in the Camargue area of France. In 2012, Luc Hoffmann's MAVA Foundation, along with WWF International, established the Luc Hoffmann Institute. He was the author of more than 60 books, mostly ornithological.
Maja Hoffmann is a Swiss art collector, art patron, documentary producer, impresario, and businesswoman. She is the founder and president of the LUMA Foundation. She is also part of the shareholder pool made up of descendants of the founder of the Roche Holding AG, which controls the Swiss health-care company Hoffmann-La Roche.
Marc Trillard is a French writer.
Jean-Christophe Bailly is a French writer, poet and playwright.
Louise Hervieu was a French writer, artist, painter, draftsman, and lithographer.
The prix Wepler is a French literary award established in 1998 at the initiative of the Abbesses Bookshop, with the support of the La Poste Foundation, and the Brasserie Wepler and which distinguishes, in the month of November, a contemporary author. It works with a rotating jury system.
Sophie Divry, is a French writer.
The éditions Phébus is a French publishing house established in 1976 by Jean-Pierre Sicre and taken over in 2003 by the groupe Libella.
The two Henkin brothers,Evgeny and Yakov, were significant early 20th century amateur street and documentary photographers who primarily recorded the daily life of, respectively, Berlin, Germany and Leningrad, Russia, in the late 1920s and 1930s, during the interwar years. Their photographs, mostly never printed in their lifetimes and kept as negatives, were re-discovered by the descendants of Yakov Henkin in the late 2000s. This collection, known as the Henkin Brothers Archive, consists of around 7000 frames of photography.
Wojciech Karpiński was a Polish writer, historian of ideas and literary critic.
André Hoffmann is a Swiss billionaire businessman, environmentalist and philanthropist.
Mava Chou was a Swiss YouTuber.
Jeanne Faivre d'Arcier is a French novelist, short-story writer and writer of children's stories.
Jan Michalski (1953-2002) was a Polish/Swiss/French book publisher who, along with Vera Michalski-Hoffmann, founded the Jan Michalski Foundation in Montricher, Switzerland which awards the annual Jan Michalski Prize in literature.
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