Alastair Niven, who has died aged 81, felt that he had spent his whole life “in one long conversation”. The settings changed, but the dialogue – and the connections it forged – went on. The foremost literary administrator and diplomat of his time, he opened up the Arts Council, the British Council and other bodies to the creative energies of Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and their diasporic communities in the UK. Later the principal of a royal foundation in Windsor, he could appear as a paladin of the establishment. But he was always more of a gate-opener – and pathfinder – than gatekeeper.
Ben Okri, one of many authors who valued his support, found in Niven a unique “bridge between cultures, between eras, and between different shores of the arts”. Bernardine Evaristo, another friend and colleague, knew not a colourless bureaucrat but a “fantastic advocate” for literature, “wise and compassionate, brilliantly knowledgable and beautifully eloquent”. Few behind-the-scenes figures have done so much to nurture the stars of the show.
