Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

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.

I'm Michael Silverblatt, and today I'm very happy to have as my guest, Michael Ondaja.

His new novel is Arnold's Ghost.

He has, of course, written previous novels and books of poetry. The novels from the

beginning coming through slaughter, the memoir running in the family, in the Skinapalayan,

and the English patient. The most recent books of poetry are a collected poems, the cinnamon

peeler, and handwriting.

I want to begin by saying that I've been reading Andesha for years and have watched this process

of excavating into the light very mysterious and incoate and dark materials,

and I find this book to be the most available yet,

as I found previously his most recent book of poetry, handwriting,

the most fully achieved statement so far.

Do you have the feeling that your processes are becoming more accessible to you as you work?

I don't quite feel that, but I do feel that with the last two books, with handwriting

and with Anil's Ghost, that there was sort of a jump, you know, into...

I'm not quite sure into what exactly, but it almost seems like a conclusion.

It was like, handwriting felt like the last book of poetry to me, and I also feels like a last, not the last

...