Late last week, a funny thing happened on Andrew Wylie’s Web site: V. S. Naipaul, one of the most distinguished authors the lit agent has signed up in recent memory, had disappeared from his online client list.
For a little while there, it was easy to let your imagination run wild. Honeymoon cut short as famously difficult author splits from new agent after just mere months! Wylie loses prized catch! Et cetera. But alas, it turned out this was just an error—apparently there was some confusion with the .html file that’s supposed to feed the most current version of Wylie’s list onto the agency Web site—and by Monday morning, Mr. Naipaul’s name had been restored to its proper place, sandwiched happily between the Kafu Nagai Estate and the Kenji Nakagami Estate.
That same morning, the list grew again, with the addition of the Kingsley Amis Estate. A person answering phones at the Jonathan Clowes agency in the U.K., which handled the Amis estate previously, told The Observer that Mr. Wylie took over the account in May. Mr. Wylie himself did not respond to an email seeking comment.
