A literary guardian angel

She made publishing giants out of them and they returned the favor by turning her into a literary agent of superhero dimensions. Carmen Balcells has a place of her own in literary history. Her stable of writers includes more Nobel winners than fingers on one hand (Mario Vargas Llosa, Gabriel García Márquez, Camilo José Cela, Pablo Neruda, Miguel Ángel Asturias and Vicente Aleixandre). The Latin American boom exploded from within her agency. She signed on Spanish writers (Miguel Delibes, Ana María Matute, Juan Marsé, Manuel Vázquez Montalbán...) long before they became 20th-century classics. These facts point to the relevance of the documents the Carmen Balcells literary agency has accumulated since 1960 ? a cache of historical material that the Culture Ministry purchased in 2010 for three million euros.

The archive comprises nearly 2,000 boxes (placed in a straight line, the documents would stretch for 2.5 kilometers) that lie in the General Archive of the Administration (AGA) in Alcalá de Henares, 30 kilometers east of Madrid, although its future location is still up in the air. The Socialist government wanted to build a national center focusing on literary creation and publishing on the strength of this material, but the regional government of Catalonia (where Balcells was born) wants the boxes back in Barcelona.

EL PAÍS was the first media outlet to have access to the collection of correspondence, original manuscripts, corrections, copyright payment receipts and drafts by writers who wanted Balcells to represent them. The holdings include the personal library of the writer Miguel Ángel Asturias and the Paul Bowles archive. But scholars will have to wait a while before sinking their teeth into all this material. At the request of Balcells, no more access will be granted to the documents for the time being ? at least until they are reclassified according to archival criteria (see box).

To delve into those overstuffed boxes is to confirm what pretty much everyone already knew: that Balcells has been an all-powerful figure in the publishing world, an octopus with a tentacle in every country. She is the only Spaniard likely to be on personal terms with Andrew Wylie, "The Jackal," considered the leading literary agent in the world. But long before Wylie, Balcells was already being described as a "literary super-agent" by the now-deceased publisher Carlos Barral.

Balcells began earning the respect of writers in 1954, when she joined the literary agency of the exiled Romanian writer Vintila Horia. She worked to put authors in the center of the publishing business and fought abuse by the latter: she did away with lifelong contracts and imposed limited-duration rights. In May 1961, Miguel Delibes praised her thus: "I know about the great efficacy of her agency, and I trust that this contact may be beneficial to both parties. For now, my affairs in Italy, as far as some books are concerned, are a mess due to the irresponsibility of certain publishers."

Writers trusted her, and she continued to grow. Gabriel García Márquez called her "Mamá Grande" (Big Mama), turning her into a literary character in one of his own books. Balcells and García Márquez's relationship was especially close, to the extent that when the agency moved locations in 1973, she wrote to him: "I've made the decision to change offices and I start to shake just thinking that I made a decision of such a nature without your blessing. I wish you could see the apartment and know whether you like it."

Manuel Vázquez Montalbán referred to her as the liberator of authors: "Until she came along, writers were signing lifelong contracts with the publishing houses, receiving agonizingly small royalties, and occasionally, as a prize, getting gifts such as a sweater or a Stilton cheese."

It's a true story. It is there in the documents. Balcells could be harsh with the publishers. She sent the Bruguera publishing house the following note on October 26, 1982: "Received your telex regarding reprint of The Autumn of the Patriarch, by García Márquez, in Club Bruguera: we absolutely disagree on the terms and do not accept this offer. Both García Márquez and Cela must receive their full royalties, as set forth in the contracts. Not half. Or do paper makers give you half for free for promotions?" To Losada, a publisher in Buenos Aires, she sent this telegram on July 16, 1979: "We regret having to communicate that if, by next week, we have no evidence of your wire transfer for all the pending sums, we will consider the contracts with Rafael Alberti rescinded. Stop. You must understand we have insisted and waited as much as we could considering the author. Stop."

The Chilean José Donoso once called her "a guardian angel, a mother hen and a muse of contemporary literature."

When she signed on Graham Greene to sell The Human Factor in Spain she deployed all her artillery when she sensed reticence from the Argentinean publishers who had had the distribution rights in Spanish: "I take the liberty of reiterating to you, since apparently it was not made clear enough in our earlier communications, that following the express wishes of Mr Graham Greene we have already proceeded to divide the market for this work."

Yet all the fury she could bring down on a wayward publisher turned into kind understanding for an author with writer's block. Balcells was instrumental in having Mario Vargas Llosa move to Barcelona. "It just so happens that every day I am increasingly sick and tired of giving classes and living like a Gypsy, and every day I am further inclined to commit murder in order to send food-related work to hell and spend all my time writing," Vargas Llosa wrote her from Puerto Rico on March 25, 1969.

Balcells pulled Ana María Matute out of a depression and gave her the emotional support she needed to complete her acclaimed novel Olvidado rey Gudú. She advanced money to many authors so they could forget about prosaic matters and concentrate on their writing. And for Cela, she managed very well-paid activities in his latter period, when literature seemed to take a backseat to the cash register.