Salman Rushdie will publish his next book, The Eleventh Hour, with Random House on November 4. The imprint acquired North American rights to the title from Andrew Wylie at the Wylie Agency. Random House called the book “a moving, masterful collection of five interlinked stories and novellas that explore the eternal mysteries of the eleventh hour of life,” with stories set in India, England, and the U.S.

“The three novellas in this volume, all written in the last twelve months, explore themes and places that have been much on my mind— mortality, Bombay, farewells, England (especially Cambridge), anger, peace, America,” said Rushdie, in a statement. “I’m happy that the stories, very different from one another in setting, story, and technique, nevertheless manage to be in conversation with one another, and with the two stories that serve as prologue and epilogue to this threesome.”

The book is Rushdie's first work of fiction since his 2023 novel, Victory City, and follows last year’s Knife, which PW called, in its review, “a forceful and surprisingly good-humored account of the 2022 knife attack that nearly killed him.” Knife has sold nearly 40,000 copies since its publication last April.

This article has been updated.