Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

You are a human animal. You are a very special breed, for you are the only animal, who can think, who can reason, who can read.

Hello and welcome to Bookworm.

This is Michael Silverblatt, and today I'm happy to have with me, Wayne Johnston.

He's a Canadian writer whose first books are being published in America.

He's written five books that were published in Canada. Here, we've got his most

recent, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, and coming out virtually simultaneously is a early

book written 10 years ago called The Divine Ryan's. One is from Doubleday, the other from the

paperback division of Doubleday anchor books.

I wanted to begin by asking you about that kind of lapse and what it's like to be published

in, as you say, the country your father called the country north of Mexico.

Yeah, my father called it that because, well, it was a kind of, not a put-down

exactly of America, but he had heard Canada so often called the country north of the United

States, so that's where he got that. Yeah, Divine Rines was published in 1990 in Canada,

and one of the reasons is actually the reason it didn't get public. in 1990 in Canada.

And one of the reasons is actually the reason it didn't get published in the States is that my publisher bought world rights and then didn't try to sell them anywhere else.

But it's strange to have, you know, a publisher's weekly review appeared recently of Divine Rines. It's strange to have a 10-year-old book reviewed, you know a publisher's weekly review appeared recently of divine rinds it's strange to have a 10-year-old

book reviewed you know and especially you know it's not in translation it's still in english it's

still exactly the same book that it was but it's also very gratifying but you can't help thinking you

know why why not why not 10 years ago know, if they like it this much now,

when they like it that much then, you know.

Well, it's an interesting thing because we, once a book gets passed, you know, it will

...