More Staff Members Leave Granta

The exodus from the London-based literary journal Granta continued this week with the departure of Philip Gwyn Jones, the publisher of the magazine's books imprint, who became the latest staff member to leave since John Freeman, the magazine's editor, announced his resignation in April. The art director, deputy editor and associate editor have also left the magazine, which recently announced the closing of its New York office.

Mr. Gwyn Jones, in a statement to The Bookseller, credited Sigrid Rausing, Granta's owner, with allowing the publishing imprint “freedom and security.” But the news quickly brought behind-the-scenes chatter about the true reasons behind Mr. Freeman's departure out into the open, with an article in The Guardian attributing it to Ms. Rausing's desire to cut financial losses.

Mr. Freeman told The Guardian that Ms. Rausing had wanted to reduce the staff, and that he “didn't want to be part of the change.” In an e-mail from Lisbon, where he is helping introduce Granta's Portuguese edition, he confirmed the clash but declined to elaborate, saying only, “Sigrid and I had a fundamental disagreement about how to approach the future.”

Ms. Rausing, a billionaire philanthropist who bought the magazine in 2005, told The Guardian that the staff departures happened “for different reasons, not all of them related.” But she acknowledged that she had made some cuts as part of a broader plan to bring the book and magazine sides of Granta closer together, with Mr. Freeman's eventual replacement overseeing the editorial aspects of both and she herself assuming what The Bookseller characterized as “full operational and executive control” of the streamlined company.

“Publishing is going through rocky times. We are lucky because I can afford the subsidy, which means that we can do things that may be harder for other publishers,” she told The Guardian. “The magazine I don't think will ever be profitable, but I am certainly hoping that the book side will make money.”

Granta, which released its influential, once-a-decade “Best of Young British Novelists” list last month, is closing its New York office at a moment of expansion elsewhere. It currently has nine editions in languages other than English, with editions coming soon in Finland, Israel, Japan and Romania.

A version of this article appeared in print on 05/25/2013, on page C2 of the NewYork edition with the headline: More Staff Members Leave Granta.