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Languages of Truth: Essays 2003-2020
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About This Book
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.
Reviews
"Rushdie's writing is erudite and full of sympathy, brimming with insight and wit ..."
"Rushdie shares vivid family stories, celebrates 'wonder tales,' and argues for boldly imaginative fiction ..."
"Languages of Truth stretches from blazing manifesto to nostalgic reminiscence, close-focus review to polite podium utterance."
"The subtext, one can't help feeling, is that Rushdie out-Márquezed Márquez without reading him and at the same time (thanks to some coyly offstage swotting) was wise – as are 'we' all – to what he borrowed from the literature of 19th-century Brazil."
"Rushdie serves up a confused vision of this century, presenting a self-absorbed and exhausted thinker whose eye has been tracking yesterday's concerns ..."
"But the irritable Rushdie felt like the real one, or at least the wide-awake one."
"Sentences arrive at manageable length."
"These are bin-scrapings but Rushdie is eminent enough to merit their inclusion ..."
"Wide-ranging nonfiction pieces by the distinguished novelist, unified by his commitment to artistic freedom and his adamant opposition to censorship in any form ..."
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