Step across this line : collected nonfiction 1992-2002

More about the book

Crossing a border, taking even a single step beyond that imaginary line that marks the end of one world and the beginning of another, means being profoundly transformed. The border, the limit, the boundary awaken our consciousness. They are the place where we cannot escape the truth: we shed the comfortable clothes of our daily existence that hide the more brutal aspects of reality, to observe things as they are. In this collection of essays and articles, Salman Rushdie crosses many borders and invites us to go beyond the confines of a narrow worldview on politics, literature, and culture, straddling the 20th and 21st centuries. In these writings, which touch on a wide variety of topics, from The Wizard of Oz to U2, from Indian writers to the death of Princess Diana, from football to the struggle against the Iranian fatwa, from Kosovo to the relationship between Islam and the West before and after September 11, Rushdie is incisive, sharp, and ironic. Even when discussing his own life pursued by religious extremists, he remains intelligent and original, confirming his status as one of the most important contemporary intellectuals.