Salman Rushdie: The Eleventh Hour, Jonathan Cape, 9781787336056, trade paperback ( Deutsch:Die elfte Stunde, Penguin Verlag)

I working at Penguin when the "Satanic Verses" were published and we experienced the mayhem of the fatwa. Naturally i had to read "Knife" his book about the late attempt on his life that nearly killed him.

And now his latest book, " The Eleventh Hour", so very different, 5 short stories, some fairytale like, all full of imagination, moving between India, America and England, starting with two old quarrelsome men, who live next to each other in Chennai and ending with an old man whose life consists of just sitting on a piazza until he is catapulted into fame. "Oklahoma" was the most demanding  for me but so cleverly constructed, my favorites however were "Late", with a humorous ghost theme, and The Musician of Kahani. Ageing, death, love, identity and ghosts are the red thread running through all five stories.  It was such a treat and joy to submerge myself into Rushdie's masterfull storytelling.