Maurice Sendak’s Emotional Last Interview with NPR’s Terry Gross, Animated by Christoph Niemann

In late Sep­tem­ber of 2011, Mau­rice Sendak spoke one last time with Ter­ry Gross for the NPR pro­gram Fresh Air. Osten­si­bly the inter­view was to pro­mote Sendak’s final book, Bum­ble-Ardy, but as the con­ver­sa­tion pro­gressed it was clear they just want­ed to talk.

The beloved chil­dren’s writer and illus­tra­tor was 83 years old and in declin­ing health. He was feel­ing the loss of peo­ple close to him who had died in recent years. Inevitably, the dis­cus­sion turned to issues of mor­tal­i­ty. As the con­ver­sa­tion built to an emo­tion­al crescen­do, Sendak laid bare the qual­i­ties that made him such a great author: sin­cer­i­ty, depth of feel­ing, and an insu­per­a­ble need to con­nect with peo­ple in some ele­men­tal way.

By the time it was over there were teary-eyed peo­ple in cars all across North Amer­i­ca. One lis­ten­er, Brent Eades, left a mes­sage on the NPR Web site: “I hap­pened to be lis­ten­ing to this extra­or­di­nary inter­view while on the ear­ly-morn­ing com­mute from my small Ontario town to Ottawa. I was entire­ly absorbed in it; and the final cou­ple of min­utes left me with tears stream­ing down my face, which I’m sure non­plussed my fel­low com­muters.”

The Ger­man-born illus­tra­tor Christoph Nie­mann had a sim­i­lar expe­ri­ence. On Sun­day The New York Times Mag­a­zine post­ed this touch­ing ani­ma­tion by Nie­mann, which tells the sto­ry of how the inter­view affect­ed him. In the film, var­i­ous crea­tures from Sendak’s fer­tile imag­i­na­tion revis­it Nie­mann as he lis­tens in his car, trans­port­ing him again to some­place spe­cial.

Sendak died on May 8, 2012, less than eight months after his con­ver­sa­tion with Gross. Nie­man­n’s film encom­pass­es the last five min­utes of the talk. You can lis­ten to the entire con­ver­sa­tion at the NPR Web site.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Mind and Art of Mau­rice Sendak: A Video Sketch

An Ani­mat­ed Christ­mas Fable by Mau­rice Sendak (1977)

Mau­rice Sendak’s Sur­re­al and Con­tro­ver­sial Sto­ry, In the Night Kitchen