Ann Godoff, founding publisher of Penguin Press, dies at 76

Ann Godoff, the influential publishing executive who helped launch and shape the careers of several bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning authors, died of complications from bone cancer in Albany, N.Y., on Feb. 24. She was 76 years old.

Godoff was president and editor-in-chief of Penguin Press, an imprint of the Penguin Publishing Group, which she founded in 2003.

“Everything we at Penguin Press do rests on the foundation she built,” the publisher stated.

The granddaughter of a Jewish immigrant from Russia, Ann Leslie Godoff was born on July 22, 1949, in Manhattan to Boris and Marilyn (Rosenstock) Godoff and was raised in New York and Los Angeles. She attended Beverly Hills High School, where her classmates included director Rob Reiner and actor Richard Dreyfuss.

She studied at Bennington College, a private liberal arts college in Bennington, Vt., before transferring to New York University, where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in film in 1972 and studied under then-faculty member Martin Scorsese.

Godoff entered publishing in her early 30s, joining Simon & Schuster in 1980 as an assistant to editor Alice Mayhew. After serving as editor-in-chief of Atlantic Monthly Press, she moved to Random House in 1991.

At Random House, she helped launch breakout successes including John Berendt’s “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” and Caleb Carr’s “The Alienist,” and worked with Salman Rushdie and E.L. Doctorow.

She formed a lasting partnership with Ron Chernow, the Jewish American biographer, publishing several of his works, including “Alexander Hamilton” and “The House of Morgan.”

Godoff also edited Tina Rosenberg’s “The Haunted Land,” which won the Pulitzer Prize, one of several prizewinning works produced under her editorial direction.

In 2003, she moved to Penguin and launched Penguin Press. There, she published the British Jewish novelist Zadie Smith. The imprint went on to produce more Pulitzer Prize winners, including Steve Coll and John Lewis Gaddis.

“Ann’s impact on American book culture over the past four decades is incalculable,” Scott Moyers, president and publisher at Penguin Press, stated. “Beyond the industry accolades, her legacy should be measured in her success in helping authors create indelible new spaces in the minds of readers.”

“Ann lived the credo of her beloved author Mary Oliver: ‘to pay attention, this is our endless and proper work,’” he added. “She made us all braver and better.”

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