Ruth Ozeki: ‘All my books are an attempt to recreate Charlotte’s Web’

Published 12 June 2026 · india

The US author, film-maker and Zen Buddhist priest on smart young girls, the difference between irony and cynicism, and working her way through 13 volumes

The US author, film-maker and Zen Buddhist priest on smart young girls, the difference between irony and cynicism, and working her way through 13 volumes of Chekhov My earliest reading memory I was reading – or pretending to read – before my brain could encode memories, so probably around three or four?

I “read” Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd, but that was mostly pictures. My favourite book growing up Charlotte’s Web by EB White. For years, I remembered it as a story about a little girl named Fern who saved her pet pig, Wilbur, but it’s not.

It’s a story about a writer named Charlotte, who happens to be a spider, who spins words into her web that save Wilbur from slaughter. It’s about the power of language to save lives. Looking back at the books I’ve written, I can see now that all of them are an attempt to recreate Charlotte’s Web.

It’s the perfect book. Continue reading...

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