The Eleventh Hour (story collection)

The Eleventh Hour: A Quintet of Stories

First edition (Jonathan Cape, 2025)
Author	Salman Rushdie
Genre	Shorter fiction
Set in	India, England, United States
Publisher	Jonathan Cape, Random House
Publication date	November 2025
Publication place	London; New York City
Pages	272
ISBN	9781787336049 (Cape)

The Eleventh Hour: A Quintet of Stories is a collection of shorter fiction by writer Salman Rushdie. Scheduled for release in November 2025, it is published by Jonathan Cape in the UK and by Random House in the U.S. ^{[1] [2]}

Rushdie announced that he was working on a new work of fiction at the Lviv BookForum in October 2024. The collection contains Rushdie's first fiction written since the stabbing attack on 12 August 2022 that left him blind in one eye. ^{[3] [a]}

Contents

The Eleventh Hour contains three novellas and two shorter pieces, set in India, England and the United States. ^{[5] [6]}

• "In the South". Originally published in The New Yorker in 2009. ^[7]
• "The Musician of Kahani"
• "Late"
• "Oklahoma"
• "The Old Man in the Piazza". Originally published in The New Yorker in 2020. ^[7]

Reception

Reviewing The Eleventh Hour in The Observer , critic Anthony Cummins described it as rambling and uneven, with "noise, bombast and the accumulation of references [serving] as substitutes for character, scene-setting and drama"; he singled out "The Musician of Kahani" – "simple but effective" – as by far the book's best offering. ^[8] In The Guardian , Kevin Power praised "In the South" as a deft and moving anecdote while finding "Late" and "The Musician of Kahani" (which he described as a reprise of "Rushdie's greatest hits") entertaining but not particularly strong. ^[6]

References

1. The 2023 novel Victory City was completed some weeks before the attack. ^[4]

1. "The Eleventh Hour by Salman Rushdie". Penguin Books. Retrieved 29 October 2025.
2. "The Eleventh Hour: A Quintet of Stories by Salman Rushdie". Penguin Random House. Retrieved 29 October 2025.
3. Higgins, Charlotte (6 October 2024). "Salman Rushdie to publish first work of fiction since 2022 stabbing". The Guardian.
4. "David Remnick Speaks to Salman Rushdie About Surviving the Fatwa – On the Media". WNYC Studios. 9 February 2023.
5. Creamer, Ella (27 March 2025). "Salman Rushdie to publish new collection of stories, The Eleventh Hour". The Guardian.
6. Power, Kevin (29 October 2025). "The Eleventh Hour by Salman Rushdie – a haunting coda to a groundbreaking career". The Guardian.
7. "The Eleventh Hour: Salman Rushdie. Random House". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 30 October 2025.
8. Cummins, Anthony (29 October 2025). "Salman Rushdie's The Eleventh Hour: For once, words fail him". The Observer.

External links

• ISBN   9781787336049 (London: Jonathan Cape)
• ISBN   9798217154197 (New York: Random House)