Why read Languages of Truth?

Book cover of Languages of Truth

Book description

Newly collected, revised, and expanded nonfiction from the first two decades of the twenty-first century—including many texts never previously in print—by the Booker Prize–winning, internationally bestselling author

Longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay

Salman Rushdie is celebrated as “a master of perpetual storytelling” (The New…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Languages of Truth as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Shane Joseph

Author

I’ve always maintained that Rushdie is a better essayist than a novelist, and this book confirms my thinking.

He laments that readers crave more realism today, more “lived-experience,” even in fiction. Gone is the ability to let the imagination soar into the magical worlds of Haroun and Luca. “How autobiographical is it?” is a question he gets asked frequently. Thus, Roberto Bolano has usurped Gabriel Garcia Marquez with his auto-fiction novels. Yet, Rushdie admits that his most successful novel is Midnight’s Children, which is autobiographical, while his other autobiographical novel, Fury, bombed.

This is a great collection, loaded with anecdotes,…

From Shane's 3 favorite reads in 2025.