For more than three decades, author Salman Rushdie has lived under threat. In 1989, a fatwa forced him into hiding. In 2022, he was stabbed more than a dozen times while speaking on stage—and nearly killed.

Less than two years later, he recounted the attack (and remarkable recovery) in his memoir Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder. Now, at seventy-eight, Rushdie returns to fiction with The Eleventh Hour, a collection of five interlinked stories that explore anger, peace, mortality, and legacy.

We begin with the inspirations behind the new quintet (5:52 ), Rushdie’s formative, bookish years in Bombay (14:20 ), and the tumultuous family life that shaped his early writing (21:20 ). Then, he reflects on his time at Cambridge (29:30 ), his stint as a copywriter (35:32 ), and the lightbulb moment that led to his breakout novel, Midnight’s Children (39:40 ).

On the back half, we discuss the fatwa (50:15 ) and book burning of The Satanic Verses (53:30 ), threats to free speech (56:36 ), and the slippery slope of political censorship (1:04:30 ). We also talk about Rushdie’s recovery and return to the page (1:14:10 ), his meta Curb Your Enthusiasm appearance (1:08:37 ), and the lasting power of literature (1:24:00 ).

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