About
Georges and Anne Borchardt co-founded the New York-based literary agency, Georges Borchardt, Inc., in 1967. Georges Borchardt introduced to American readers major works by Roland Barthes, Samuel Beckett, Pierre Bourdieu, Gilles Deleuze, Marguerite Duras, Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault, Eugene Ionesco, Jacques Lacan, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Jean-Paul Sartre, Elie Wiesel and Monique Wittig. In 2010, he was awarded the insignia of Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. Georges and Anne are not open to submissions at this time.
Georges Borchardt, Inc. today is primarily an agency for English language writers, and currently represents over 200 authors including eight Pulitzer Prize winners and two Nobel Prize winners. The agency represents novelists and nonfiction writers as well as several major literary estates.
Valerie Borchardt joined the agency in 1999. Several of her clients have appeared on The New York Times bestseller list. She is the president and the foreign rights director. She has a BA from Wesleyan University and a Masters in Slavic Language and Literature from Columbia University. Valerie is not open to submissions at this time.
After graduating from Colgate University, Samantha Shea joined Georges Borchardt, Inc. in 2010 and was made a Vice President in 2016. Her list includes literary fiction, memoir/narrative nonfiction, journalism, popular culture, essays, cultural criticism, and history. Samantha’s authors are regularly named for numerous awards and honors, including the “5 Under 35” honor from the National Book Foundation, the “Best of Young American Novelists” honor from Granta Magazine, the Kirkus Prize, the Whiting Award, the National Book Critics Circle Awards, the PEN/ Robert W. Bingham Prize, and others. Samantha is open to queries in the following genres: upmarket fiction, journalism, history, and cultural criticism.
Selected Authors: Lesley Nneka Arimah, Nona Aronowitz, Chelsea Bieker, Anna Bruno, Amy Butcher, Jane Delury, Camille Dungy, Lydia Fitzpatrick, Simon Han, Greg Jackson, Andrew Moore, Adam O’Fallon Price, Willa Richards, David Ridgen, Charlotte Shane, Shruti Swamy, Barrett Swanson, Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, Elizabeth Wetmore, Jenny Zhang.
Cora Markowitz graduated from Kenyon College in 2017 with a BA in English and completed the Columbia Publishing Course the following summer. She interned at the Kenyon Review, Flatiron Books, Pippin Properties, and Writers House before making her way over to Georges Borchardt as the assistant to Georges, working with a wide range of authors including Ian McEwan, T.C. Boyle, and Anne Applebaum. She is now taking on clients of her own as well as handling film rights for the agency. Cora is open to queries in the following genres: upmarket fiction and literary fiction.
Pronoy Sarkar joined in 2025, focused on non-fiction. He is interested in bold, ambitious, and conversation shifting projects across a range of areas, including history, biography, popular science, politics and current affairs, economics/law, high concept/big think, investigative journalism, culture, and paradigm-defining works focused on feminism, race, sexuality, and the intersections thereof. Also, cultural tastemakers and critics with fresh perspectives and points of view. Above all, projects should be imbued with strong writing of the highest quality. Previously, he worked at Little, Brown as a senior editor, where some highlights include publishing the New York Times bestselling, Heat Will Kill You First by Jeff Goodell, finalist for the Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism, LA Times Book Prize, and PEN/EO Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing; San Francisco Chronicle bestseller, If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal by Justin Gregg; The Everything War by WSJ reporter and Pulitzer winner Dana Mattioli, a finalist for the Financial Times Book Prize, and acquiring forthcoming books by bestselling historian Rick Perlstein, Washington Post op-ed columnist Dana Milbank, Congressman James Clyburn, and bestselling management professor at MIT, Andrew McAfee, among many others. He was also an editor at St. Martin’s Press, where he published 2030 by Mauro F. Guillen, a Wall Street Journal bestseller and Financial Times Best of the Year pick, New York Times bestselling The Fund by NYT reporter Rob Copeland, Aftershocks by Biden officials Colin Kahl and Thomas Wright, Profit and Punishment by 2019 Pulitzer Prize winner Tony Messenger, among others. If you have a non-fiction project that fits, Pronoy is open to queries. Please include a brief description of the project and your credentials.
Some notable authors he's worked with include Olivia Laing, Jonathan Franzen, Jonathan Safron Foer, Nobel Laureate Mario Vargas Llosa, Lucia Berlin, Daryl Pickney, Andre Aciman, Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, economist Linda Yueh, diplomat Phillip Gordon, Eric Posner, Edmund Richardson, playwright Andre Gregory, and the Wu-Tang Clan. He's also held jobs at Picador US and Simon & Schuster.
Mira Coles graduated from the University of Oregon in 2024 with a BA in Comparative Literature. She has interned at INCLUDAS Publishing and completed the Columbia Publishing Course in the fall of 2024. Now at the Georges Borchardt Agency, she is the assistant to Valerie.
A NOTICE – It's been brought to our attention that someone has been pretending to work for our agency and has been requesting money in exchange for reading an author’s materials. Please note that our agents will never ask for money to review proposals or manuscripts for the agency. If you receive a suspicious message or are contacted by someone claiming to work at our agency and want to verify their authenticity, please call our main office number: 212-753-5785.