Sonny Mehta, the head of the Alfred A. Knopf book imprint, has died at the age of 77 from complications of pneumonia, according to his family. Mehta was credited with guiding the publishing house to authors that included Cormac McCarthy and Toni Morrison. He also had the foresight to commission major bestsellers, including Fifty Shades of Grey and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. He also published Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In and Bill Clinton’s My Life. He was the third editor of the 72-year-old publishing house, and took over from Robert Gottlieb in 1987. Mehta was the son of Indian diplomat Amrik Singh Mehta and graduated from Cambridge University with degrees in history and English literature. “On a good day, I am still convinced I have the best job in the world,” he told Vanity Fair in 2016. He is survived by his wife, the author Gita Mehta.
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