Maurice Sendak, the writer and illustrator of such dark children’s classics as Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen, died on Tuesday. Sendak, though hugely popular, always alienated a section of the American public because his books did not conform to their view of childhood. His stories were fantastical, but he insisted that he never lied to children – his grotesque scenes were infused, he said, with reality and fundamental truth.
In the video above, he explains that his books were inspired by the memory of what his childhood was like – a mess of vague signals and misunderstandings, a world where poverty created dreams of sensual excess and otherness. He does not go into here, but Sendak once explained how the experience of migrant communities inspired his singular style. The parochial customs and tactility of his eastern European Jewish relatives were alien to the polite streets of cosmopolitan, modern New York. He said that the harmless monsters in Where the Wild Things Are were fantastical representations of the gangly throwbacks who visited him at home, tugging at his face and pulling his hair out of affection. The childhood he recognised was not saccharine.
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