Richard Rodriguez: Darling, A Spiritual Autobiography

"I consider an essay to be the biography of an idea," says Richard Rodriguez. Yes, ideas not as airy abstractions but as lived, embodied and temporal things. Richard's writing has always balanced intellectual sweep with lyrical particularity, threading its way between big-picture cultural criticism and intimate memoir. In his latest collection he is as broad and deep as ever, musing on faith in the dark days after 9/11; Judaism, Christianity and Islam as "desert religions"; his own relationship to Catholicism and his argument with the "new atheists"; the role of women in his emancipation as a gay man; and finding a way to live in love and live with death. Richard brings the same intensity and acuity to conversation as he does to the page, which made this interview a special one.