Languages of Truth: Essays 2003-2020Newly collected, revised, and expanded nonfiction from the first two decades of the twenty-first century—including many texts never previously in print—by the Booker Prize–winning, internationally bestselling author Longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay Salman Rushdie is celebrated as “a master of perpetual storytelling” (The New Yorker), 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. |
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I grew up in Bombay, India, a city that is no longer, today, at all like the city it once was and has even changed its name to the much less euphonious Mumbai, in a time so unlike the present that it feels impossibly remote, ...
I grew up in Bombay, India, a city that is no longer, today, at all like the city it once was and has even changed its name to the much less euphonious Mumbai, in a time so unlike the present that it feels impossibly remote, ...
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The Mahabharata and its sidekick, the Ramayana, two of the longest wonder tales of all, are still alive in India, alive in the minds of Indians and relevant to their daily lives, in the way the gods of the Greeks and Romans were once ...
The Mahabharata and its sidekick, the Ramayana, two of the longest wonder tales of all, are still alive in India, alive in the minds of Indians and relevant to their daily lives, in the way the gods of the Greeks and Romans were once ...
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... and very often extremely sexy narratives contained in the rest of the Eastern storehouse, because—not only because, but, yes, because—they show how much pleasure is to be gained from literature once God is removed from the picture.
... and very often extremely sexy narratives contained in the rest of the Eastern storehouse, because—not only because, but, yes, because—they show how much pleasure is to be gained from literature once God is removed from the picture.
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But imagine, once again, the vizier filling up with fury for many years as he was forced to spill all that innocent blood. Imagine the years of the vizier's fear, the one thousand and one nights of fear, while his daughters, ...
But imagine, once again, the vizier filling up with fury for many years as he was forced to spill all that innocent blood. Imagine the years of the vizier's fear, the one thousand and one nights of fear, while his daughters, ...
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It goes something like this: “Once upon a time in a faraway place, a merchant was owed money by a local nobleman, really quite a lot of money, and then unexpectedly the nobleman died and the merchant thought, This is bad, I'm not going ...
It goes something like this: “Once upon a time in a faraway place, a merchant was owed money by a local nobleman, really quite a lot of money, and then unexpectedly the nobleman died and the merchant thought, This is bad, I'm not going ...
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LibraryThing Review
Umsögn notanda - bookboy804 - LibraryThingEngaging, stylish, beautifully written essays on language, storytelling, authors; essays derived from PEN related speeches, introductions, commencement addresses; essays on visual artists. Introduced and reintroduced me to wonderful authors and artists, and engaging ideas. Highly recommended. Read full review
Efni
Heraclitus | |
Another Writers Beginnings | |
Philip Roth | |
Kurt Vonnegut and SlaughterhouseFive | |
Samuel Becketts Novels | |
Cervantes and Shakespeare | |
Hans Christian Andersen | |
Very Well Then I Contradict Myself | |
The Pen and the Sword | |
PEN World Voices Opening Night 2017 | |
The Emperor Akbar and the Making | |
Letters | |
Bhupen Khakhar 19342003 | |
An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar | |
Harold Pinter 19302008 | |
Introduction to The Paris Review Interviews Vol IV | |
Adaptation | |
From Saligia to Oblomov | |
Kara Walker at the Hammer Museum Los Angeles 2009 | |
The Unbelievers Christmas | |
A Personal Engagement with the Coronavirus | |
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actually adaptation American answer artists asked beautiful became become beginning believe better Bombay British called character close created dead death English example face fact father feel fiction figure freedom give gods hand happened hijras human hundred idea imagination India interesting it’s kind king knew language later learned least less literary literature lives London look lost magic means mind movie nature never night novel once original painting perhaps Persian person picture play political published question readers religious remember Roth seems Shakespeare sometimes speak stand story tell things thought told true truth trying turn understand voice whole women wonder writers wrote young