Michael Silverblatt, an American literary critic and broadcaster who hosted the nationally syndicated radio program Bookworm, died on February 14, 2026, at age 73.
He presented the show from 1989 to 2022 on KCRW, the Los Angeles public radio station, and recorded more than 1,600 interviews with authors and other literary figures. His guests included Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie, Joan Didion, Susan Sontag, David Foster Wallace, William H.
Gass, W. G. Sebald and John Ashbery. Born in New York City, he attended SUNY Buffalo, where he majored in English, and later began postgraduate studies at Johns Hopkins University, but did not complete them.
Michael Philip Silverblatt (August 6, 1952 – February 14, 2026) was an American literary critic and broadcaster who hosted Bookworm, a nationally syndicated radio program focusing on books and literature, from 1989 to 2022. He recorded over 1,600 interviews with authors and other literary figures, including Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie, Joan Didion, Susan Sontag, David Foster Wallace, William H. Gass, W. G. Sebald, and John Ashbery.