| Description |
xi, 356 pages ; 25 cm |
| Summary |
"Salman Rushdie is celebrated as a storyteller of the highest order, illuminating deep 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 2019, Languages of Truth chronicles Rushdie's own 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 deeply 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, often by telling vivid, sometimes humorous stories of his own personal encounters with them, whether on the page or in person. He delves deeper than ever before into the nature of "truth," revels in the vibrant malleability of language, and the creative lines that can join art and life, and he looks anew at migration, multiculturalism and censorship. The ideas, true stories and arguments presented here are at once revelatory, funny and eye-opening, enlivened on every page by Rushdie's signature wit and dazzling voice, making this volume a genuine pleasure to read"-- Provided by publisher. |
| Contents |
Wonder tales -- Proteus -- Heraclitus -- Another writer's beginnings -- Philip Roth -- Kurt Vonnegut and Slaughterhouse-five -- Samuel Beckett's novels -- Cervantes and Shakespeare -- Gabo and I -- Harold Pinter (1930-2008) -- Introduction to The Paris Review Interviews, Vol. IV -- Autobiography and the novel -- Adaptation -- Notes on Sloth : from Saligia to Oblomov -- Hans Christian Anderson -- King of the world by David Remnick -- Very well then I contradict myself -- Truth -- Courage -- Texts for pen -- The pen and the sword -- The birth of pen world voices -- The Arthur Miller lecture, 2012 -- Pen world voices opening night 2014 -- Pen world voices opening night 2017 -- Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011) -- The liberty instinct -- Osama Bin Laden -- AI Weiwei and others -- The half-woman God -- Nova Southeaster University commencement address, 2006 -- Emory University commencement address, 2015 -- The composite artist : the Emperor Akbar and the making of the Hamzanama -- Amrit Sher-Gil : letters -- Bhupen Khakhar (1934-2003) -- Being Franceso Clemente : self-portraits, Gagosian Gallery, London, 2005 -- Taryn Simon : and American index of the hidden and unfamiliar, Whitney Museum, New York, 2007 -- Kara Walker at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, 2009 -- Sebastiáo Salgado -- The unbeliever's Christmas -- Carrie Fisher -- Pandemic : a personal engagement with the coronavirus -- The Proust questionnaire : Vanity Fair. |
| Genre |
Essays.
|
| ISBN |
9780593133170 (hardback ; acid-free paper) |
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