First edition, signed by the author on the title-page. This collection of nine stories by Rushdie was his first collection of stories, and includes three previously unpublished (‘The Harmony of the Spheres’, ‘Chekov and Zulu’, and ‘The Courter’ – the last quoting lyrics and anticipating Rushdie’s intense engagement with music in his 1999 novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet). The other stories were first featured in The New Yorker, the London Review of Books, the Atlantic Monthly, and (in the case of ‘At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers’ – a story ‘about the day when Dorothy’s red shoes are knocked down to $15,000 at a sale of MGM props’ (www.salmanrushdie.com) – in Granta.

In East, West Rushdie combines realism and imagination to explore the duality of Eastern and Western cultures that had characterised his children’s book Haroun and the Sea of Stories four years previously. Kirkus Reviews found that ‘the stories are a reminder that Rushdie […], the accomplished postmodern fabulist, is also a splendid realist storyteller who describes the human heart with clear-eyed sympathy. […] A product of both worlds, Rushdie builds a safe passage over the seemingly unbridgeable with generous insight and wry humor in this distinguished collection’.