East, West: Stories (Vintage International) - Softcover

Rushdie, Salman

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0679757899 ISBN 13: 9780679757894

Publisher: Vintage, 1996

Synopsis

In this brilliant collection - his first major work of fiction since The Satanic Verses - one of the great writers in the world today gives us nine stories that together reveal the intricate intimacies and unbridgeable distances between the East and the West. A rickshaw driver dreams of being a Bombay movie star while, in a futuristic Western dystopia, legendary Hollywood icons acquire magic powers. Indian diplomats who as childhood friends hatched "Star Trek" fantasies must boldly go into a hidden universe of conspiracy and violence; and Hamlet's jester, too, is caught up in murderous intrigues. In Rushdie's hybrid world, an Indian guru can be a red-headed Welshman, while Christopher Columbus is an immigrant, dreaming of Western glory. A young Pakistani woman faces a journey to England to meet the husband she does not know; an elderly Indian lady in London must choose between love and home. With profound sensitivity, Rushdie allows himself, like his characters, to be pulled now in one direction, now in another. Yet throughout this collection he remains, really, a writer who insists on our cultural complexity; who confidently rises beyond ideology, refusing to choose between East and West.

About this title

Review:

"One of the decade's great literary triumphs: magical, compassionate, wise, beautiful, and so very entertaining." --The Toronto Star

"Richly imaginative...The characters are memorable, the language swift, and the reader is touched by desire, friendship and love." --The Globe and Mail

"A pleasure to read...The stories in East, West have the careful precision of ivory miniatures. And all of them, beneath their infectiously playful surfaces ponder the imponderables of human fate." --Macleans's

Book Description:

A brilliant collection of short stories from the Booker prize-winning author.

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0679757899
• ISBN 13: 9780679757894
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224