"Although Silverblatt's 30-minute show, which ran from 1989 to 2022 and was nationally syndicated, included interviews with celebrated authors including Gore Vidal, Kazuo Ishiguro, David Foster Wallace, Susan Orlean, Joan Didion and Zadie Smith, the real star of the show was the host himself, the nasal-voiced radio personality who more than once in life was told he did not have a voice for his medium."
"His show represents one of the most significant archives of conversations with major literary powerhouses from the late 20th and early 21st centuries. But Silverblatt knew that he was as much a character as the people he interviewed. "I'm as fantastical a creature as anything in Oz or in Wonderland," he said during a talk in front of the Cornell University English department in 2010."
Michael Silverblatt hosted KCRW's Bookworm from 1989 to 2022, producing nationally syndicated 30-minute interviews with authors such as Gore Vidal, Kazuo Ishiguro, David Foster Wallace, Susan Orlean, Joan Didion and Zadie Smith. He died at 73 at home after a protracted illness. The program accumulated a significant archive of conversations with major literary figures spanning the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Silverblatt's nasal voice and intense knowledge of authors' work became his trademark, and he embraced his persona, describing himself as 'as fantastical a creature as anything in Oz or in Wonderland.' Born in Brooklyn in 1952, he loved reading and attended the University at Buffalo at 16. His college included professors such as Michel Foucault, John Barth, Donald Barthelme and J.M. Coetzee. Silverblatt was shy and often embarrassed to speak during class.
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