The Eleventh Hour
The Eleventh Hour by Salman Rushdie, published by Penguin Random House on November 4, 2025, is a collection of five works of fiction that delve into the complexities of life as one approaches its twilight. Set against the backdrop of national calamity, the stories feature two old men in Chennai, a magical musician in Bombay, and an undead academic in an English university, each grappling with personal tragedies and existential questions.
Readers will find a rich exploration of themes such as mortality, legacy, and identity, as the narratives traverse the three countries that have shaped Rushdie’s life: India, England, and America. The stories invite contemplation on how we confront death, bid farewell to our homes, and seek fulfillment in the face of uncertainty. With 272 pages, this edition presents Rushdie’s signature blend of visionary and metaphysical storytelling, reflecting on the human condition with depth and imagination.
Official synopsis Publisher
If old age was thought of as an evening, ending in midnight oblivion, they were well into the eleventh hour.
Two quarrelsome old men in Chennai, India, experience private tragedy against the backdrop of national calamity. Revisiting the Bombay neighbourhood of Midnight’s Children, a magical musician is unhappily married to a multibillionaire. In an English university college, an undead academic asks a lonely student to avenge his former tormentor.
These five dazzling works of fiction move between the three countries that Salman Rushdie has called home – India, England and America – and explore what it means to approach the eleventh hour of life. They are the reckoning with mortality that we all must one day make, and speak deeply to what the author has come from and through.
Do we accommodate ourselves to death, or rail against it? How can we bid farewell to the places that we have made home? How do we achieve fulfilment 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.
‘More than 40 years after Midnight’s Children, there is still nobody who spins a yarn quite like Salman Rushdie’ Spectator
‘Rushdie has not just enlarged literature’s capacities, he has expanded the world’s imaginative possibilities’ The Times
‘Salman Rushdie is a genius’ A.M. Homes
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