Table of Contents

Imaginary HomelandsIntroduction
1
Imaginary Homelands
"Errata": Or, Unreliable Narration in Midnight's Children
The Riddle of Midnight: India, August 1987

2
Censorship
The Assassination of Indira Gandhi
Dynasty
Zia ul-Haq. 17 August 1988
Daughter of the East

3
"Commonwealth Literature" Does Not Exist
Anita Desai
Kipling
Hobson-Jobson

4
Outside the Whale
Attenborough's Gandhi
Satyajit Ray
Handsworth Songs
The Location of Brazil

5
The New Empire within Britain
An Unimportant Fire
Home Front
V. S. Naipaul
The Painter and the Pest

6
A General Election
Charter 88
On Palestinian Identity: A Conversation with Edward Said

7
Nadine Gordimer
Rian Malan
Nuruddin Farah
Kapuscinski's Angola

8
John Berger
Graham Greene
John le Carre
On Adventure
At the Adelaide Festival
Travelling with Chatwin
Chatwin's Travels
Julian Barnes
Kazuo Ishiguro

9
Michel Tournier
Italo Calvino
Stephen Hawking
Andrei Sakharov
Umberto Eco
Gunter Grass
Heinrich Boll
Siegfried Lenz
Peter Schneider
Christoph Ransmayr
Maurice Sendak and Wilhelm Grimm

10
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Mario Vargas Llosa

11
The Language of the Pack
Debrett Goes to Hollywood
E. L. Doctorow
Michael Herr: An Interview
Richard Ford
Raymond Carver
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Philip Roth
Saul Bellow
Thomas Pynchon
Kurt Vonnegut
Grace Paley
Travels with a Golden Ass
The Divine Supermarket

12
Naipaul Among the Believers
"In God We Trust"
In Good Faith
Is Nothing Sacred?
One Thousand Days in a Balloon

About the Author

Sir Salman Rushdie is the author of many novels including Grimus, Midnight's Children, Shame, The Satanic Verses, The Moor's Last Sigh, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Fury and Shalimar the Clown. He has also published works of non-fiction including The Jaguar Smile, Imaginary Homelands, The Wizard of Oz and, as co-editor, The Vintage Book of Short Stories.

Reviews

The 75 articles collected here, many of them book reviews, range widely over literary, political, and religious themes. Among the topics covered are racism in Great Britain, the existence of a Commonwealth literature, and the assassination of Indira Gandhi. Books reviewed include works by Saul Bellow, V.S. Naipaul, Nadine Gordimer, Italo Calvino, Heinrich Boll, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Underlying much of his work--and lending it some unity--is Rushdie's concern with migration and nationality, with celebrating difference and freedom of expression over orthodoxy and conformity. Two essays in the concluding section, ``In Good Faith'' and ``Why I Have Embraced Islam,'' speak directly to the author's plight as a result of his publication of The Satanic Verses . Recommended for academic and larger public libraries.-- William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY

Rushdie calls his controversial novel The Satanic Verses "a migrant's-eye view of the world," and indeed the theme of cultural transplantation informs many of the 75 essays and reviews gathered in this impressive collection. Whether he is analyzing racial prejudice in Britain or surveying an India riven by fundamentalism and politics of religious hatred, he writes as an impartial observer, a citizen of the world. Subtle and witty, these concise, eloquent pieces are a pleasure to read. Rushdie's wide-ranging sympathies range from Grace Paley's stories to Thomas Pynchon's political allegories. He situates such writers as Gunter Grass, John le Carre and Mario Vargas Llosa in a political context. Along with a devastating review of the movie Gandhi and a withering portrayal of Margaret Thatcher's class-ridden, jingoist Britain, there are two resounding replies (both written last year) to critics of The Satanic Verses : Rushdie explains the book's intentions and defends the freedom of the writer. (May)