Publish and be damned

Parliamentary affairs loom large as The Literator chooses the heroes and villains of the book world in

Heroes

Edwina Currie

She added to the gaiety of the nation by spilling the beans over Westminster's best-kept secret, in the process stripping away Major's claim to the moral high ground. Who'd have thought it? Although, of course, it was all there in her debut novel, A Parliamentary Affair – with the love interest and Chief Whip Roger Dickson who was, like John M, a Wandsworth boy made good. Even the famous blue underpants were featured. But what of the strawberries and whipped cream incident? And did he really cover his modesty with a hanky?

Philip Pullman

The children's choice closed the year with yet another well-deserved trinket for the mantelpiece: the Eleanor Farjeon Award for his outstanding contribution to children's literature. In January, Pullman became the first children's author to win the coveted Whitbread Book of the Year Award for The Amber Spyglass, proving – after 31 years – that the best of children's literature can compete with adult books. "There are lots of good children's books around, and what I'd like to see is more adults reading children's books ... There are some great writers out there, great storytellers," he said.

Bill Samuel And Christopher Foyle

The cousins made their debut last year and 2002 has confirmed them as the good guys of bookselling. Not only has their flagship Foyles begun its makeover, but the store has also taken on Silver Moon and, most recently, Ray's Jazz – and the children's department has been redesigned for kids, complete with a tank of real piranhas. The art gallery is once again up and running and staff are being trained. Not surprisingly, sales are well up, and "the world's most famous bookshop" enters its centenary year in sprightly form.

Sarah Waters

Shortlisted for the Orange and the Booker, Waters has proved a gallant loser – and was delighted when she finally won a Crime Writers Association award for Fingersmith. That novel took lesbian fiction out of the closet and brought it to the sort of audience that has long read the likes of Alan Hollinghurst without batting an eyelid. Tipping the Velvet might have been tamed for telly but, even in 2002, it was still relatively risqué. Waters has proved that a good story well told has no boundaries.

Stephen Page

Head-hunted from HarperCollins last year, to which company he had been transplanted along with Fourth Estate, Page has just completed his first year as MD of the venerable Faber & Faber. A keen amateur percussionist, he has made T S Eliot's old company dance to a different drum, refreshing staff, lists, design and much else besides while holding fast to core literary values. A publisher that had become too snooty for its own good (and has now lost chairman Matthew Evans to the Labour whips' office in the Lords) is reaching out to new readers with a list that stimulates as it entertains and provokes. Page is a man to watch.

Jamie Byng

Yann Martel, who put Canongate on the map when he scooped the Booker with Life of Pi, describes Byng as "a non-stop genius, with this unbelievable level of energy". The fuel may not be to everyone's taste, but there's no doubting Byng's commitment. Scarcely into his thirties, he began work at Canongate as a student intern in 1992 and, two years later, bought the company for around £100,000 – helped, of course, by a well-to-do family. But he's worked hard and put his money where his mouth is, innovating along the way: the Pocket Canons, a hip repackaging of the Bible, have so far been translated into a dozen languages.

Villains

Edwina Currie

How dare she reveal a long-past affair of which poor Honest John was bitterly ashamed! And all because she wasn't mentioned in his memoirs! Currie is no more than a woman scorned, determined to wreck the happiness and reputation of a decent man for 30 pieces of silver.

Jeffrey Archer

Doubtless, there are many who see the former MP-turned-best-selling-novelist as a loveable rogue. But the man who could have been Mayor of London was jailed as a perjurer, and the jury is still out over other aspects of his life and conduct. So had he any right to host a business meeting in jail and then benefit from a multimillion-pound book contract with Macmillan? Jail is meant to deprive inmates of their means to earn a living. The former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party may have donned the mantle of Elizabeth Fry, but his diaries are but a shameless attempt to sway public opinion and gain early release. Let's hope the public passes its own verdict on his latest novel, Sons of Fortune, which is now – a month ahead of schedule – in the bookshops.

Jonathan Lloyd

Before he became Jeffrey Archer's literary agent, the MD of Curtis Brown – Winston Churchill's old agency – had been a squash partner and informal advisor to the novelist, a role that was not without benefit. Given that prisoners are not supposed to use visiting time to further their business interests, should he have been allowed to close on a multi-million pound deal negotiated across the table in one of HMP's visiting rooms?

Macmillan

Harold Macmillan, later Earl of Stockton, must be spinning in his grave. Macmillan, a once-great family firm – publisher of Thomas Hardy and Lewis Carroll, of Palgrave and Grove, but now owned by the Germans of Holtzbrink – paying millions of pounds for the novels and diaries of a jailbird! A Conservative of the old school who believed in holding on to the family silver, Supermac would not have approved of Archer the arriviste, who happily sells himself to the highest bidder. Nor of Ulrika Jonsson.

Charles Frazier

Though the South Carolina horse-breeder and author of Cold Mountain kept faith with his British publishers, Sceptre, he proved himself to be no southern gent when it came to deciding the US publishers of his second, unwritten, novel. Grove Atlantic, who took on the then unknown and made him an international success story, put together a substantial package. But Frazier chose instead to decamp to Random House, who offered $8.25m – on top of the $3m already paid by Hollywood. Such deals are bad for the industry – and may yet prove damaging to the novelist.