The Eleventh Hour

A Quintet of Stories

De: Salman Rushdie

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

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

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.

©2025 Salman Rushdie (P)2025 Random House Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

“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