Gallimard was the daughter of , a politician and a senior French official who was a senator, deputy before the war and secretary of state for fine arts in different governments, between 1951 and 1954. In 1939, she married
Claude Gallimard, son of
Gaston Gallimard, founder and boss of the publishing house
Gallimard. The four children of this marriage were
Francoise,
Christian,
Antoine and
Isabelle, all working in the book trade. After the purchase in 1957 by his father-in-law Gaston Gallimard of
Mercure de France, a publishing house founded in 1894 by
Alfred Vallette, Simone Gallimard became its director in 1962 and CEO in 1969. She was surrounded by renown literary directors such as
Renaud Matignon,
Michel Cournot,
Paul Pavlowitch,
Nicolas Bréhal. Authors of this publishing house received enviable literary prizes:
prix Goncourt for
Andreï Makine,
prix Renaudot for
Salvat Etchart,
prix Médicis for
Michel Butel and
François-Olivier Rousseau,
prix Femina for
Claude Faraggi,
Jocelyne François and
Paula Jacques. She was at the heart of the "
Émile Ajar affair": Ajar was awarded the prix Goncourt, when he was in fact the pseudonym of
Romain Gary, who still remains the only recipient of two Goncourt awards. She died on 23 October 1995 as a result of cancer. Her daughter, Isabelle, succeeded her as the head of the Mercury of France in 1995. == References ==