The Eleventh Hour

A Quintet of Stories

De: Salman Rushdie

Narrado por: Sanjeev Bhaskar, Nicholas Khan, Sid Sagar, Naveen Andrews, Neil Shah

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From internationally renowned, award-winning author Salman Rushdie, a spellbinding exploration of life, death, and what comes into focus at the proverbial eleventh hour of life

“An inventive and engrossing collection of stories which, though death-tinged, are never doom-laden. With luck this master writer has more tales to tell.”—Los Angeles Times

Rushdie turns his extraordinary imagination to life’s final act with a quintet of stories that span the three countries in which he has made his work—India, England, and America—and feature an unforgettable cast of characters.

“In the South” introduces a pair of quarrelsome old men—Junior and Senior—and their private tragedy at a moment of national calamity. In “The Musician of Kahani,” a musical prodigy from the Mumbai neighborhood featured in Midnight’s Children uses her magical gifts to wreak devastation on the wealthy family she marries into. In “Late,” the ghost of a Cambridge don enlists the help of a lonely student to enact revenge upon the tormentor of his lifetime. “Oklahoma” plunges a young writer into a web of deceit and lies as he tries to figure out whether his mentor killed himself or faked his own death. And “The Old Man in the Piazza” is a powerful parable for our times about freedom of speech.

Do we accommodate ourselves to death, or rail against it? Do we spend our “eleventh hour” in serenity or in rage? And how do we achieve fulfillment 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.

Reseñas de la Crítica

Praise for The Eleventh Hour

“The famed writer delivers a brilliant series of intimations of mortality. . . . A provocative set of tales that, though with grim moments, celebrate life, language, and love in the face of death.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Rushdie returns in full transfixing force . . . The evocative title, cuing us to a sense of urgency, is a unifying vision for these five tectonic tales and a gauge of Rushdie's astute perception of our current dire predicament . . . exquisitely sensitive . . . Rushdie’s spectacularly imaginative eleventh-hour cautionary tales are enthralling, sagacious, and resounding.”—Booklist, starred review

“Rushdie follows his memoir Knife with a marvelous story collection focused on themes of legacy and death. . . . Grounded in moving ruminations on the afterlife and what a person leaves behind, these stories sing.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“At 78, Rushdie is still publishing impactful work; we can all doff our hats to one of the most important voices in contemporary literature.” —Independent

“An inventive and engrossing collection of stories which, though death-tinged, are never doom-laden. With luck this master writer has more tales to tell.” —Los Angeles Times

“Rushdie really needs no introduction, but let’s just say that a musing on life and what we leave behind is well worth picking up when it comes from an author who has himself survived several assassination attempts, was knighted for his contributions to literature, and is a foremost master of magical realism.”—CULTURED magazine


Praise for Salman Rushdie

“He is a legend. . . . His is not only an enviable talent, it’s a revelatory mind [displaying] a profound knowledge of history, culture, human frailty, and triumph.”—Toni Morrison

“A master of perpetual storytelling.”—The New Yorker

“No one, and I mean no one, can bring an entire world to life with the authority, wisdom, humor, and panache of Salman Rushdie.”—Gary Shteyngart

“Rushdie is our Scheherazade.”—Ursula K. Le Guin

“A master of metamorphosis—transforming life, art, and language in the subterranean maze of his imagination.”—Don DeLillo

“A storyteller of prodigious powers, able to conjure up whole geographies, causalities, climates, creatures, customs, out of thin air.”—The New York Times Book Review

interesting ways of seeing, dealing with death.

I enjoyed the different views and traditions that surround the last act that remains a mystery. I am fascinated by the wonderful, intelligent writing that I know I will enjoy because the author is the magnificent Salman Rushdie.