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Published May 2021
368 pages
Genre: Essays
Publication Information
Newly collected, revised, and expanded nonfiction - including many texts never previously in print - from the first two decades of the twenty-first century by the Booker Prize–winning, internationally bestselling author.
Salman Rushdie is celebrated as a storyteller of the highest order, 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.
"[M]esmerizing...Rushdie's writing is erudite and full of sympathy, brimming with insight and wit...Rushdie's fans will be delighted." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"This collection...showcases [Rushdie's] generous spirit, dedicated to illuminating the work of fellow artists and defending their right to unfettered creativity. Formidably erudite, engagingly passionate, and endlessly informative: a literary treat." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Salman Rushdie was born in Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1947. He studied in India and England, reading History at King's College, Cambridge. His first novel, Grimus, was published in 1975. His second novel, the critically acclaimed and award-winning Midnight's Children, was published in 1991. Among its honors, it was pronounced the 'Booker of the Bookers,' which recognized it as the best example of that illustrious prize. Malcolm Bradley in The Modern British Novel (1994) pronounced the book "a new start for the late-twentieth-century novel." Rushdie's next novel, Shame, also won critical acclaim and international awards. Famously, Rushdie's next book, The Satanic Verses, incurred an issuance of a fatwa – a call for his death – by the orthodox leadership in Iran. Rushdie went into ...
... Full Biography
Link to Salman Rushdie's Website
Name Pronunciation
Salman Rushdie: sal-MARN RUSH-dee
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