You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed.

Or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

Hello, and welcome to Bookworm.

My name is Michael Silverblatt.

Today my guest is Elena Poniatowska.

She is the author most recently of a novel called Teenissimo.

It is a novel based on the life of the Italian actress, photographer, revolutionary, Tina Modati,

whose work is being rediscovered now, the work that she did in Mexico as a photographer.

Elena Poniatowska is known as Mexico's premier woman of letters.

She has done profound work in art history, in particular the history of photography.

She has written a series of novels and essays that have illuminated the lives of women writers from within.

It's fascinating to read this book because one becomes aware that just as Los Angeles in the 30s

was a place where Bertolt Brecht lived and a great cultural center

of music and art. All of it gathered under the umbrella of the film community, but not part

of the film community. So too, Mexico in the 20s is a place where Artot went, Breton went.

Many of the great international modernist artists spend time there.

Diego Rivera is discovering his mural work.

Edward Weston has gone there with Tina Modati.

They are beginning, essentially, the illumination

of reality, a photograph which will show something simple at a moment caught to create

...