COPYRIGHT PRINT AND IPAD EDITION ONLYNO ONLINE RIGHTSCREDIT LINE MUST READ: TIM KNOX/GUARDIANEMBARGO FOR THE SUNDAY AGE 9 OCTOBER 2011CONTACT SYNDICATIONS X2251 FOR DETAILS34332696-70 Supplier Ref: GD25018549-Maurice-Sendak,-chil.jpg Pictured here at his home in Connecticut, is children's author, Maurice Sendak. To his millions of readers, Sendak will always be young, a proxy for Max in Where the Wild Things Are, who runs away from his mother's anger into the consoling realm of his own imagination. The monsters from Wild Things were based on his own relatives. If he had come from a happy home, says Sendak, he would never have become an artist, at least not the kind of artist he is. Sendak's picture books acknowledge the terrors of childhood, how viscous and lonely it can be. In his latest book, Bumble-Ardy, the hero is a piglet who loses his neglectful parents to a slicing machine on the firstMaurice Sendak has a touch of brittle bitterness about him, not unlike some of the characters from his books, which include Where the Wild Things Are. Photo: Tim Knox/Guardian

At 83, children's author Maurice Sendak is as angry as ever. Roald Dahl? Glad he's dead. Salman Rushdie? Detestable. Life? Pretty dreadful most of the time.


MAURICE Sendak looks like one of his own creations: beady eyes, pointy eyebrows, the odd monsterish tuft of hair and a reputation for fierceness that makes you tiptoe up the path of his beautiful house in Connecticut like a child in a fairytale.
Maurice Sendak's latest book Bumble-Ardy.Sendak has lived here for 40 years, until recently with his partner Eugene, who died in 2007, and now alone with his dog, Herman (after Melville), a large Alsatian who barges to the door to greet us. ''He's German,'' says Sendak, getting up from the table where he is doing a jigsaw puzzle of a monster from his most famous book, Where the Wild Things Are. Sotto voce, he adds: ''He doesn't know I'm Jewish.''
At 83, Sendak is still enraged by almost everything that crosses his landscape.
In the first 10 minutes of our meeting, he gets through:

(Right - Maurice Sendak's latest book Bumble-Ardy.)

■E-books: ''I hate them. It's like making believe there's another kind of sex. There isn't another kind of sex. There isn't another kind of book. A book is a book is a book.''
■New York: ''You get pushed and harassed and people grope you. It's too tumultuous, it's too crazy!''
■The American right: ''These Republican schnooks would be comical if they weren't not funny.''
■Rupert Murdoch: ''His name should be what everything is called now.'' But he publishes you! ''Yes! Harpers. He owns Harpers and I guess the rest of the world, too. He represents how bad things have become. But I don't know a better house. They're all in trouble. They're all terrible.''