# The Eleventh Hour ## Metadata - **Author:** Salman Rushdie - **Published:** 4 November 2025 (Jonathan Cape, London; Random House, New York); paperback August 2026 - **Form:** Collection of five stories and novellas, 272 pages ## About Five interconnected pieces on mortality, aging, legacy, and farewells, set across India, England, and America, the three places Rushdie has lived. It's his first published fiction since the 2022 stabbing at Chautauqua, and he has named Goya, Kafka, and Bosch among the influences. ([CBS New York](https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/salman-rushdie-the-eleventh-hour-release-date), [Penguin Random House](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/803572/the-eleventh-hour-by-salman-rushdie/)) ## The stories Premises as described in the reviews below, not from my own reading. 1. **In the South**: two aging neighbors, very different men, whose banter and companionship sit against the unpredictability of death. Previously published in *The New Yorker* (2009). 2. **The Musician of Kahani**: a Mumbai-centered family saga about a prodigy with magical powers dealing with celebrity and capitalism, with metafictional passages. 3. **Late**: an afterlife satire set in a Cambridge purgatory, where a dead writer's ghost deals with colonial complicity and legacy; one reviewer sees a figure paralleling Alan Turing. 4. **Oklahoma**: a dense, allusive literary thriller about how artistic influence can distort reality, in a Kafkaesque vein. 5. **The Old Man in the Piazza**: a short allegory about free speech and the loss of vitality in language. Previously published in *The New Yorker* (2020). ## Reviews and findings - **The Federal** (Aditya Mani Jha): calls it Rushdie at his best and his strongest work in about a decade; praises the psychological insight and the return to his earlier roots. [Read](https://thefederal.com/category/features/salman-rushdie-new-book-the-eleventh-hour-review-quintet-of-short-stories-fiction-216358) - **The Oxford Student** (Ivett Berényi): a devastating but masterful look at mortality, grief, and the decay of language; notes the role of chance in death and how vulnerable artists are even when their work lasts. Finds "Oklahoma" demanding, with an active reader needed to follow its literary allusions. [Read](https://www.oxfordstudent.com/2025/11/07/salman-rushdies-the-eleventh-hour-reviewed/) - **The Guardian** (Kevin Power), as summarized on [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eleventh_Hour_(story_collection)): finds "In the South" moving, but "Late" and "The Musician of Kahani" more entertaining than strong, the latter reworking familiar Rushdie themes. - **The Observer** (Anthony Cummins), same source: finds the collection uneven and too dependent on references rather than character, though he rates "The Musician of Kahani" as simple but effective. - **Brown Pundits**: [review, Feb 2026](https://www.brownpundits.com/2026/02/20/review-the-eleventh-hour-by-salman-rushdie/) (not read; the page blocked automated access). **Takeaway:** reviews split. Some read it as a late-career return to form; others find it uneven and referential. "In the South" and "The Musician of Kahani" come up most often as the strongest pieces. ## Further reading - [Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/230118837-the-eleventh-hour) - [PBS interview on his first fiction since the attack](https://www.pbs.org/video/salman-rushdie-discusses-his-first-work-of-fiction-since-near-fatal-attack-jcaa12/) - [CBS: Rushdie on the book and free speech](https://www.cbsnews.com/video/salman-rushdie-on-the-eleventh-hour-and-free-speech) ## My notes