Salman Rushdie Books

Salman Rushdie is celebrated as "a master of perpetual storytelling" (The New Yorker), illuminating truths about our society and culture through his gorgeous, often searing prose. Now, in his latest collection of nonfiction, he brings together insightful and inspiring essays, criticism, and speeches that focus on his relationship with the written word and solidify his place as one of the most original thinkers of our time. Gathering pieces written between 2003 and 2020, Languages of Truth chronicles Rushdie's intellectual engagement with a period of momentous cultural shifts. Immersing the reader in a wide variety of subjects, he delves into the nature of storytelling as a human need, and what emerges is, in myriad ways, a love letter to literature itself. Rushdie explores what the work of authors from Shakespeare and Cervantes to Samuel Beckett, Eudora Welty, and Toni Morrison mean to him, whether on the page or in person. He delves deep into the nature of "truth," revels in the vibrant malleability of language and the creative lines that can join art and life, and looks anew at migration, multiculturalism, and censorship. Enlivened on every page by Rushdie's signature wit and dazzling voice, Languages of Truth offers the author's most piercingly analytical views yet on the evolution of literature and culture even as he takes us on an exhilarating tour of his own exuberant and fearless imagination

If old age was thought of as an evening, ending in midnight oblivion, they were well into the eleventh hour. Two quarrelsome old men in Chennai, India, experience private tragedy against the backdrop of national calamity. Revisiting the Bombay neighbourhood of Midnight's Children, a magical musician is unhappily married to a multibillionaire. In an English university college, an undead academic asks a lonely student to avenge his former tormentor.These five dazzling works of fiction move between the three countries that Salman Rushdie has called home – India, England and America – and explore what it means to approach the eleventh hour of life. They are the reckoning with mortality that we all must one day make, and speak deeply to what the author has come from and through.Do we accommodate ourselves to death, or rail against it? How can we bid farewell to the places that we have made home? How do we achieve fulfilment with our lives if we don't know the end of our own stories? The Eleventh Hour ponders life and death, legacy and identity with the penetrating insight and boundless imagination that have made Salman Rushdie one of the most celebrated writers of our time.Brought to you by Penguin.

From 'Best of the Booker' winner Salman Rushdie, an incisive and inspiring collection of non-fiction essays, criticism and speeches that takes readers on a thrilling journey of the evolution of language and culture. Gathering pieces written between 2003 and 2020, including several never previously in print, Languages of Truth chronicles a period of momentous cultural shifts. Across a wide variety of subjects, Rushdie delves into the nature of storytelling as a deeply human need, and what emerges is a love letter to literature itself. Throughout, Rushdie shares his personal encounters, on the page and in person, with storytellers from Shakespeare and Cervantes to Samuel Beckett, Eudora Welty, and Toni Morrison, and revels in the creative lines that can join art and life. Always attuned to the malleability of language, Rushdie considers the nature of truth, and looks anew at migration, multiculturalism and censorship. Written with the author's signature wit and energy, Languages of Truth offers pleasure and insight in equal measure, confirming Rushdie's place as one of the most original and important thinkers of our time.

The Nehrus are a dynasty without precedent in the modern world; nowhere else and at no other time in recent history has a single family wielded such enduring and pervasive power over the country and the electorate they serve. From Jawaharlal Nehru to his daughter, Indira Gandhi, and from there, via Sanjay and Rajiv to most recently Sonia, this remarkable family have consistently established both the parameters and rhetoric of India's political development. In the eighties, Tariq Ali made several trips to India, meeting a wide range of political and public figures, including Mrs Gandhi, and leaders of both the Congress and Opposition parties. The Nehrus and the Gandhis, first published in 1985, was the result. Now updated to include the most recent chapters in India's political history, it remains as relevant as ever, offering an intricate and revealing portrait of power, seen through the continued rise and eyes of one family.

Celebrated as one of the BBC's 100 greatest children's books, this story captivates young readers with its imaginative narrative and relatable characters. It explores themes of adventure, friendship, and the power of imagination, making it a timeless classic. The book's engaging plot draws children into a vibrant world, encouraging them to dream and explore. Its enduring appeal has made it a beloved choice for generations, ensuring that it continues to inspire and entertain young audiences today.

Saleem Sinai was born at midnight, the midnight of India's independence, and found himself mysteriously 'handcuffed to history' by the coincidence. He is one of 1,001 children born at the midnight hour, each of them endowed with an extraordinary talent -

Haroun's father is the greatest of all storyletters. His magical stories bring laughter to the sad city of Alifbay. But one day something goes wrong and his father runs out of stories to tell. Haroun is determined to return the storyteller's gift to his father. So he flies off on the back of the Hoopie bird to the Sea of Stories - and a fantastic adventure begins.

For all their permeability, the borders snaking across the world have never been of greater importance. This is the dance of history in our age: slow, slow, quick, quick, slow, back and forth and from side to side, we step across these fixed and shifting lines. —from Part IVWith astonishing range and depth, the essays, speeches, and opinion pieces assembled in this book chronicle a ten-year intellectual odyssey by one of the most important, creative, and respected minds of our time. Step Across This Line concentrates in one volume Salman Rushdie’s fierce intelligence, uncanny social commentary, and irrepressible wit—about soccer, The Wizard of Oz, and writing, about fighting the Iranian fatwa and turning with the millennium, and about September 11, 2001. Ending with the eponymous, never-before-published speeches, this collection is, in Rushdie’s words, a “wake-up call” about the way we live, and think, now.

Containing 74 essays written over the last ten years, this book covers a range of subjects including the literature of the perceived masters and of Rushdie's contemporaries, the politics of colonialism and the ironies of culture, film, politicians, the Labour Party, religious fundamentalism in America, racial prejudice and the preciousness of the imagination and of free expression.