Intelligence Squared

Salman Rushdie on Mortality, Memory and The Eleventh Hour

November 5, 2025

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  • Salman Rushdie views his new collection, *The Eleventh Hour*, as a return to his primary identity as a fiction writer after completing his non-fiction work *Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder*, with the stories reflecting on mortality and revisiting the geography of his life. 
  • Rushdie expresses concern over the current global climate, noting the rise of authoritarianism and nationalism, and the worrying trend of self-censorship and book banning, which he believes cripples the essential artistic freedom of entering many worlds. 
  • The author reflects on the power of his childhood neighborhood in Bombay (Mumbai) as a source of lifelong inspiration, contrasting the cosmopolitan past of the city with its current, more adversarial atmosphere, and acknowledges the loss of intellectual companionship following the recent deaths of close writer friends like Christopher Hitchens and Martin Amis. 

Segments

Return to Fiction Writing
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(00:03:50)
  • Key Takeaway: Rushdie prefers fiction writing, viewing himself as primarily someone who ‘makes things up,’ and found the short story collection emerged organically.
  • Summary: Salman Rushdie expressed relief returning to imaginative work after focusing on non-fiction for several years. The collection’s structure was not initially planned; the first story, ‘Late,’ was written without knowing if it would be a novella or short story. Subsequent novella-length stories appeared later, suggesting the book chose him rather than the reverse.
Bombay Nostalgia and Farewell
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(00:06:42)
  • Key Takeaway: The story ‘The Musician of Kahani’ serves as a final literary farewell to the Bombay neighborhood of Rushdie’s youth, as he feels he will not revisit that setting in fiction again.
  • Summary: The Indian story in the collection was inspired by his niece, a concert pianist, and supernatural music tales. The narrator’s walk through the old neighborhood is framed as a ’last walk up the hill,’ signifying a goodbye to that specific place in his writing. Rushdie noted that the cosmopolitan nature of his childhood Bombay no longer exists due to increased tension and authoritarianism.
Writing Process and Place
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(00:05:37)
  • Key Takeaway: Rushdie’s writing process has shifted from detailed planning to day-to-day discovery, where he allows the story to reveal itself during the writing process.
  • Summary: He contrasts his current method of discovery with his earlier career when he required a full architectural plan before writing. While he maintains a general sense of where a story is heading, much of the content emerges through the daily act of writing. He also compared his deep connection to a small corner of Bombay to Faulkner’s lifetime of work derived from Oxford, Mississippi.
Cosmopolitanism and Political Shifts
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(00:15:36)
  • Key Takeaway: The current political climate, marked by rising authoritarianism and nationalism, is eroding cosmopolitan spaces globally, alarming Rushdie, especially as young people in Europe are increasingly voting for right-wing parties.
  • Summary: Rushdie noted that the geography of The Eleventh Hour reflects his life’s journey through India, England, and America. He expressed alarm that the trend of rising authoritarianism is not limited to one region, citing reports of young voters supporting far-right parties in France and Germany. He contrasted this with the intrinsic ‘arrival’ narrative that defines New York City.
Limits of Literature and Free Speech
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(00:20:12)
  • Key Takeaway: Rushdie acknowledges that literature has limitations, specifically its inability to directly end conflicts like war, and worries that current societal anger closes the mind, which is necessary for reading.
  • Summary: The author stated that literature cannot solve real-world crises, a realization that is sad for someone dedicated to the art form. He believes people are losing the ability to listen to each other due to pervasive anger and vindictiveness, which closes the mind required for engaging with literature. He referenced the story ‘Old Man in the Piazza’ where language itself becomes a character representing the failure of public discourse.
Book Banning and Appropriation
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(00:26:33)
  • Key Takeaway: Rushdie strongly opposes book banning and self-censorship, arguing that the answer to bad speech is better speech, and that restricting writers from entering other experiences cripples art.
  • Summary: He cited over 23,000 books currently on banned lists in America, including classics like To Kill a Mockingbird. He noted a worrying trend of speech restriction coming from the left as well as the right, emphasizing that art requires the freedom to explore all subjects. He asserted that all art is appropriation, citing Picasso, and that limiting writers based on identity prevents them from achieving the wide range of experience seen in writers like Dickens.
Freedom, Goodness, and Borders
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(00:34:50)
  • Key Takeaway: The tension between individual freedom and societal goodness is an ancient philosophical battle, which Rushdie connects to the historical problem of arbitrary borders drawn by outsiders causing conflict.
  • Summary: In the story ‘Late,’ a character argues that goodness requires social assent, making it incompatible with highly individualistic freedom. Rushdie noted that societies like the US prioritize the individual, while Eastern societies prioritize the group. He referenced T.H. White’s The Sword in the Stone, where flying over the landscape reveals that borders are invisible from above, highlighting the artificiality of lines drawn on maps that cause heartache.
Loss of Literary Peers
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(00:37:56)
  • Key Takeaway: The recent passing of close writer friends like Paul Auster and Martin Amis signifies the departure of a generation known for providing readers with ‘zanier stuff’ beyond kitchen sink realism.
  • Summary: The loss of friends like Christopher Hitchens and Martin Amis is felt keenly, particularly the loss of their shared laughter and word games. Rushdie reflected that this group, often labeled ‘bright young things,’ benefited from a reader mood that favored experimental forms over realism. He noted that this generation of writers is now ‘checking out.’