5x15: Salman Rushdie, Barbican

Salman Rushdie is perhaps the greatest living writer in the English language; certainly the greatest storyteller. He is known for his political skirmishes, not least the Iranian fatwa issued against him in 1989.
Not even the drama of a government-ordered assassination, though, could eclipse the power of his writing, which is extraordinary. His crowded works are usually set on the Indian Subcontinent, and poke around in the fracture between East and West. The novels are astonishingly extravagant; rabid, magical writing with a sly satirical bite, set in maximalist prose.
Rushdie won the Man Booker Prize in 1981 for his second novel, Midnight's Children, which is widely considered one of the best books ever written. Since then, he has written nine further novels (including the incendiary Satanic Verses, which earned the writer his fatwa) and won a great many awards.
This September marks the release of Rushdie's latest novel, Two Years, Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, and to mark the occasion, Rushdie will speak at the Barbican, courtesy of 5x15. Three years in the writing, the book is a loose riff on the Arabian Nights, which is set in the near future in New York City. An odd assembly of characters are bound together by ancient mysteries and hidden worlds. In his usual byzantine fashion, Rushdie blends Homeric epic with sci-fi, pop-culture, history and myth. 
Don't miss this rare opportunity to see Rushdie in conversation: his London appearances are few and far between these days. Get booking.