Caroline Michel, Baroness Evans of Temple Guiting | |
Birth Name: | Caroline Jayne Michel |
Birth Date: | 1959 4, df=yes |
Birth Place: | Harrogate, Yorkshire, England |
Other Names: | Lady Evans of Temple Guiting (courtesy style by marriage) |
Nationality: | British |
Occupation: | Literary agent, CEO Peters Fraser & Dunlop |
Children: | 3 |
Alma Mater: | University of Edinburgh (MA) |
Relatives: | John Cryer MP Ian Michel |
Caroline Jayne Michel (born 4 April 1959), formally styled Baroness Evans of Temple Guiting from 2000 but known professionally as Caroline Michel, is a British literary agent, who since 2015 serves as Chairwoman of the Hay Festival.[1]
Caroline Michel attended Oakdene School in Buckinghamshire,[2] before going up to read Sanskrit at the University of Edinburgh, graduating MA.[3]
Having started her career with Chatto & Windus in 1982, Michel was appointed managing director of literary magazine Granta in 1990, before joining publishers Random House (Vintage) in 1992, then HarperPress in 2001. After William Morris Agency poached her in 2005, Michel serves since 2007 as CEO of Peters Fraser & Dunlop.[4]
A committee member of the Booker Prize Foundation (1994–2001), the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman Award Panel (2011–19) and of HMG Advisory Panel on public library service in England (2014–15), she was appointed Chairwoman of the British Film Institute Trust in 2011. A Trustee of Somerset House (since 2013) and Vice-President of the London Library (since 2016), Michel has been elected a FRSA.[5]
The daughter of Austro-Hungarian émigré Wolfgang Richard Max Michel (1928–2012)[6] and Valerie Gilbert Fooks née Cryer (b. 1934), who lives in Knightsbridge, London SW7, her younger brother is UAE-based arms dealer Christian Michel,[7] and a cousin is Ian Michel, Master Currier (2023/24).[8]
In 1991 she married, as his second wife, Matthew Evans[9] (later Baron Evans of Temple Guiting); they had three children:
The year after her husband's death, she moved to live in Pimlico.[11]