Sigrid Rausing

Sigrid Maria Elisabet Rausing (born 29 January 1962) is a Swedish philanthropist, anthropologist and publisher. She is the founder of the Sigrid Rausing Trust, one of the United Kingdom's largest philanthropic foundations, and owner of Granta magazine and Granta Books.

Early life
Rausing grew up in Lund, Sweden, and studied History at the University of York between 1983 and 1986. She earned an MSc in Social Anthropology from University College London in 1987, then continued with a PhD focusing on post-Soviet anthropology, and did her fieldwork on a collective farm in Estonia, in 1993–94. In 1997, she was awarded a PhD in Social Anthropology from the Department of Social Anthropology at University College London, followed by an honorary post-doctorate in the same department.

Writing
Rausing's monograph based on her PhD, History, Memory, and Identity in Post-Soviet Estonia: The End of a Collective Farm, was published by Oxford University Press in 2004. The book was preceded by a range of articles in scholarly journals, including Ethnologie Française. Rausing writes occasional columns for the New Statesman, and her articles on human rights have appeared in The Guardian and The Sunday Times.

Everything Is Wonderful, a personal memoir of her year in Estonia researching the remnants of the Estonian Swedish community, was published by Grove Atlantic in the US, and by Albert Bonniers Förlag in Sweden, in spring 2014. It was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje Prize. Rausing is also the author of Mayhem: A Memoir (2017), which shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize in 2018.

Publishing
In spring 2005, with her husband Eric Abraham and publisher Philip Gwyn-Jones, she founded the publishing house Portobello Books, and that autumn Rausing acquired Granta, a literary journal, and its book publishing arm. She is now the publisher of both Granta magazine and Granta Books, including its imprint Portobello Books. In the 164th issue of Granta magazine, for which she had served as editor since 2013, she announced that Thomas Meaney would take over editorship beginning with the Autumn 2023 issue.

Recognition
In 2010, Rausing was made an Honorary Fellow of the London School of Economics.

In February 2013, Rausing was judged to be one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom by Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4.

In January 2014, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of York, from which she also received the Morrell Fellowship, and in June 2014, she was elected an Honorary Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford.

In January 2016, Rausing was the guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs. Her favourite music choice was Chopin’s "Études Op. 10, No. 1 in C major". Other choices were: "Hallelujah" by k.d. lang, "The Vatican Rag" by Tom Lehrer, "Bird on the Wire" by Leonard Cohen, "Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us" by Alison Krauss and Robert Plant, "The Last Goodbye" by The Kills, "I Get a Kick Out of You" by Ella Fitzgerald, and "Le Cygne (The Swan)" by Camille Saint-Saëns. Her book choice was Mansfield Park by Jane Austen and her luxury item was the British Library.

In 2016, she was awarded by the University of Kent the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters in recognition of her contribution to philanthropy and publishing.

In 2020, Rausing was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL), and in 2021 she was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Literature (DLit) from University College London.

Philanthropy
Rausing set up the charitable trust the Sea Foundation in 1988. In 1996, she transferred the funds to the Ruben and Elisabeth Rausing Trust, named after her grandparents; the trust was renamed the Sigrid Rausing Trust in 2003, and by 2014 had distributed approximately £208.3 million to human rights organisations globally.

In 2004, she was the joint winner of the International Service Human Rights Award, in the Global Human Rights Defender category. In 2005, she won a Beacon Special Award for philanthropy. In 2006, she was awarded the Women's Funding Network's "Changing the Face of Philanthropy" Award.

Rausing is a judge on the jury of the Per Anger Prize for human rights defenders, and an emeritus board member of the Order of the Teaspoon, a Swedish organisation against political and religious extremism.

She was the judge of the Amnesty International Media Awards in 2009 and 2010. She is an Emeritus member of the international board of Human Rights Watch and of the advisory board of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court.

She is a former trustee of Charleston, in Sussex, the museum that is the former home of Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell.

In 2012, she was a judge of the Index on Censorship Media Awards.

Rausing is a supporter of Hope Not Hate, a UK advocacy group that campaigns against racism and fascism. On 1 December 2018, the Sigrid Rausing Trust began a grant of £450,000 over three years to Hope Not Hate. By that point, Hope Not Hate had received £615,000 from the Sigrid Rausing Trust.

Personal life
Rausing's first marriage to Dennis Hotz, a South African publisher and art dealer, ended in divorce. In 2003, she married South African-born TV, film and theatre producer Eric Abraham. They own Aubrey House in Holland Park, and the Coignafearn estate, in the Monadh Liath, in the Highlands of Scotland.