Product Description

A rickshaw driver dreams of being a Bombay movie star; Indian diplomats, who as childhood friends hatched Star Trek fantasies, must boldly go into a hidden universe of conspiracy and violence; and Hamlet's jester is caught up in murderous intrigues. In Rushdie's hybrid world, an Indian guru can be a redheaded Welshman, while Christopher Columbus is an immigrant, dreaming of Western glory. Rushdie allows himself, like his characters, to be pulled now in one direction, then in another. Yet he remains a writer who insists on our cultural complexity; who, rising beyond ideology, refuses to choose between East and West and embraces the world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #135529 in Books
• Published on: 1996-01-03
• Released on: 1996-01-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 211 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Rushdie's collection of nine highly postmodern stories probes the differences and connections between East and West, celebrating the hybrid nature of contemporary identity.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
A first collection of short stories from the famously hidden Rushdie.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
The secluded Rushdie's first collection of short stories, his first major work of fiction since the explosive 1989 novel The Satanic Verses, has been much anticipated and won't disappoint. These nine delectable stories are divided into three categories, "East," "West," and "East, West." The Eastern ones have a Thousand and One Nights flavor and are set in Rushdie's native Pakistan. The best in this grouping is "Good Advice Is Rarer than Rubies," about a young woman who goes to the British consulate for a visa so that she may live with her husband; her charm defeats the old man she encounters at the door, who wants to supply her with fraudulent papers. Rushdie's Western stories incorporate elements of magic realism and feature European settings. The most compelling is "Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella of Spain Consummate Their Relationship," giving the affiliation between the encounterer of the New World and his regal sponsor a decided sexual angle. The stories in the "East/West" section bring the two worlds together, and the outstanding one of that beautiful trio is "The Harmony of the Spheres," about a deeply felt but tragically ended friendship between an Englishman and a Pakistani. Rushdie's brilliant style reinforces his stories' marvelous combination of dignity and poignancy. Though these stories were originally published in such periodicals as the New Yorker and the Atlantic, the collection will serve for many readers as an introduction to Rushdie's talent in the short story form. Expect high demand. Brad Hooper