Devine and Terkel

He had become interested in the author - renowned as one the world's leading oral historians - after studying his canon at Manchester University in the 90s. Devine had then been captivated by Terkel's work in chronicling the lives of the famous, and the very ordinary, people of America.

Speaking about the meeting, now chronicled itself in the book 'The Final Interview, Studs Terkel', he said: "Despite the fact that he was a 92-year-old getting over a broken neck, he was in his mind an 18-year-old. He was fascinating, the way in which he brought the sum of his knowledge to the interview.

"I was there to ask him about his own mortality and some of his responses were surprising given he had been so independent up to the accident and now he was dependent on other people.

"That is why I called it his final interview because he knew his number was up and he was then living on borrowed time."

The book is published by Feeney Publications and is being made available in both the UK and the US.

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Comments (3)

1  By Andrea Raila, USA , on 01-05-2009 00:37 There are some errors in this good story. For clarification Studs died at age 96 in 2008 (not 2005)--on Oct 31. And this final interview was done when Terkel was 96 (not 92). Studs would have been 97 May 16, 2009. With all the local Chicago newspapers going out of business and journalists unemployed ---Studs certainly would have wept for our hard times... Report