Children’s book author Maurice Sendak has been asked many questions throughout his career, but when New York Times writer Patricia Cohen asked if there is anything he’d never before been asked, the author paused before saying, “Well, that I’m gay.”
The 80-year-old author of the legendary children’s book Where the Wild Things Are revealed in the interview that he “just didn’t think it was anybody’s business.” Sendak told the Times that he lived with his partner, psychoanalyst Eugene Glynn, for 50 years before he passed away in 2007.
Sendak sat down with The New York Times to discuss a benefit celebrating his career. The event drew a slew of celebrity attention, including Meryl Streep, James Gandolfini, and playwright Tony Kushner, who called Sendak one of the most important “writers and artists ever to work in children’s literature.”
Sendak told the Times that he never came out to his parents -- something he says he now regrets. He says he kept quiet about being gay because the idea of a gay man writing children’s books might have killed his career when he was in his 20s and 30s.
Sendak is nearing completion on his latest book, he told the Times, but put work on hold when Glynn took ill. He told the Times that for the first time in his life, he is scared of not being able to finish a project.
“I feel like I don’t have a lot of time left,” he said.
On the heels of the Times interview, Out.com's Popnography blog extended a thanks to Sendak for "deciding at 80 years young there was no point in waiting around any longer to be asked." (The Advocate)
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