Swiss publisher Bernard Campiche marks forty years, succession plan abandoned
The Vaud-based editor, who had planned to hand over his house to a young successor in 2027, celebrates its anniversary Saturday in Fribourg after that transition fell through.
Bernard Campiche Editeur turns forty this year, and the publisher is marking the occasion with a party Saturday in Fribourg, organized by the Association des amis de Bernard Campiche Editeur, according to Le Temps. About thirty authors are expected, many of them long-time names on the house's list: Sylviane Chatelain, Antonin Moeri, Pierre Béguin, Marina Salzmann, Jacques-Etienne Bovard and Laurence Verrey among them. They will read extracts from their work during what Le Temps describes as a more festive evening than anyone expected earlier this year.
Earlier in 2026, Bernard Campiche had announced he wanted to pass on the house. He had survived a pulmonary embolism in 2022 and said he no longer had the strength to continue. By spring, a successor had been named: the young poet and publisher Arthur Billerey, who was due to take over at the start of 2027.
In September, however, the two men announced they were abandoning the handover "by mutual agreement," Le Temps reports. Billerey has since founded his own imprint in Vevey, Le Verre ardent, under the Trousp association, devoted to poetry, novels and essays.
Campiche, described by the paper as "ragaillardi" — reinvigorated — is continuing to run his house from Sainte-Croix. He told Le Temps that from the start he followed "a policy of authors," the loyalty evident in Saturday's guest list of writers who have stayed with him across the decades.
Sources
This article was written from these reports.
