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.

From KCRW, Santa Monica, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today, I am very pleased to have as my guest, Roberto Colosso, whose new book, Kay, has been published by Knopf.

He's the author as well of the 49 Steps and a trilogy of critical narrative works that began with the marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, continued with Ka.

The Ruin of Kosh is a historical part of this now four-book series.

And K is a book entirely dedicated to the work of Kafka.

Colossosso has reread it.

He's got a certain kind of kinship with Kafka in that Cadmus and Harmony,

Ka, Kosh, and now K, all make sounds that include his name. Kafka wrote books that included

a K, a K, a K.

So to begin with, let me ask you about this question of naming.

Well, it's rather embarrassing because nobody believes me when I say that not only I didn't think it in advance, but I even tried to avoid it up to the very last minute.

For instance, when it came to K, which is the most critical case, because you have to think that in certain languages, for instance, Spanish and German, K and K are pronounced in the same way.

So imagine the booksellers how happy they are about that.

They get nervous.

So I didn't want it particularly, and I tried to find some other way, and I simply didn't.

So at the end, I had to recognize that the title, as you said, something with a very obvious similarity, starting, in fact, with cash and then particularly the last two, K and K.

So it was not, you know, in literature, what the author wants or doesn't want is not so important.

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