Promotional Information

'Over the quick sprint of an essay, Rushdie dazzles and swoops' Financial Times

About the Author

Salman Rushdie is the author of ten novels, one collection of short stories, three works of non-fiction, and the co-editor of The Vintage Book of Indian Writing. In 1993 Midnight's Children was judged to be the Best of the Booker, the best novel to have won the Booker Prize in its forty year history. The Moor's Last Sigh won the Whitbread Prize in 1995 and the European Union's Aristeion Prize for Literature in 1996. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres.

Reviews

This impressive book limits itself to neither the light-hearted nor the undisturbably grave
*Sunday Times*

He has a great deal to say-a likeable, readable and profoundly gripping book
*Scotland on Sunday*

Ten years of Salman Rushdie's incisive non-fiction
*Independent*

Rushdie has used all his experience and literary skills to defend what is most worth defending: our freedom to think, and say, and write what we want, without fear for our lives
*Sunday Telegraph*

Rushdie is the most assiduous reader of other people's work, a true and tireless man of literature...a total believer in the power of the word
*Observer*

Thanks to some Iranian ayatollahs, Rushdie is probably the most famous writer still alive. Although he remains under partial protection, he has continued to write since 1989, producing several novels and many articles. This first collection of short nonfiction includes material about his life under the fatwa ("Messages from the Plague Years") but ranges from discussions of The Wizard of Oz and rock music to his February 2002 lectures on human values at Yale. The title is well chosen; Rushdie tends to be confrontational, and the white-hot publicity has not mellowed him-a 1999 piece debates whether Charlton Heston or Austrian writer Peter Handke, a supporter of Slobodan Milosevic, should be dubbed "Moron of the Year." Although some of the pieces themselves are a bit dated, Rushdie has added updates in footnotes, and in any case he always makes his point. For large collections or journalism special collections.-Shelley Cox, Special Collections, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale

This impressive book limits itself to neither the light-hearted nor the undisturbably grave * Sunday Times *
He has a great deal to say-a likeable, readable and profoundly gripping book * Scotland on Sunday *
Ten years of Salman Rushdie's incisive non-fiction * Independent *
Rushdie has used all his experience and literary skills to defend what is most worth defending: our freedom to think, and say, and write what we want, without fear for our lives * Sunday Telegraph *
Rushdie is the most assiduous reader of other people's work, a true and tireless man of literature...a total believer in the power of the word * Observer *