La Penã°ltima Hora / The Eleventh Hour - Paperback

«Rushdie no solo ha ampliado lascapacidades de la literatura, sino que ha expandido las posibilidades imaginativas del mundo . -The Times

Tras el ataque sufrido en 2022, en el que casi pierde la vida y que relató en su anterior libro, Cuchillo, «nuestro Scheherazade -como lo llamó Ursula K. Le Guin- regresa a la ficción. En estos cinco relatos, la desbordante imaginación de Salman Rushdie adopta un tono crepuscular. Vuelve a sus orígenes, a las calles del Bombay de Hijos de la medianoche, donde se reencuentra con viejos personajes de la novela de 1981, y completa un recorrido por los tres países donde ha vivido: India, Inglaterra y Estados Unidos.

Nos dejamos llevar hacia la muerte o nos resistimos a ella? Cómo nos despedimos de los lugares que han sido nuestro hogar? En estas historias donde se dan cita dos ancianos criminales, un infeliz matrimonio cargado de música, dólares y magia, el fantasma de un académico inglés con ansias de venganza, una muerte misteriosa y una preciosa parábola sobre la libertad de expresión, Rushdie se enfrenta a la penúltima hora de la vida y reflexiona sobre la muerte y el legado, la identidad y la pertenencia.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

From internationally renowned, award-winning author Salman Rushdie, a spellbinding exploration of life, death, and what comes into focus at the proverbial eleventh hour of life Rushdie turns his extraordinary imagination to life's final act with a quintet of stories that span the three countries in which he has made his work--India, England, and America--and feature an unforgettable cast of characters.

"In the South" introduces a pair of quarrelsome old men--Junior and Senior--and their private tragedy at a moment of national calamity. In "The Musician of Kahani," a musical prodigy from the Mumbai neighborhood featured in Midnight's Children uses her magical gifts to wreak devastation on the wealthy family she marries into. In "Late," the ghost of a Cambridge don enlists the help of a lonely student to enact revenge upon the tormentor of his lifetime. "Oklahoma" plunges a young writer into a web of deceit and lies as he tries to figure out whether his mentor killed himself or faked his own death. And "The Old Man in the Piazza" is a powerful parable for our times about freedom of speech.

Do we accommodate ourselves to death, or rail against it? Do we spend our "eleventh hour" in serenity or in rage? And how do we achieve fulfillment 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.