Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights | Salman Rushdie | Talks at Google

Salman Rushdie visited Google's office in Cambridge, MA to discuss his book, "Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights". Centuries ago, Dunia, a princess of the jinn, fell in love with a mortal man of reason. Together they produced an astonishing number of children, unaware of their fantastical powers, who spread across generations in the human world. Now the line between worlds has been breached. Dunia’s children and others will play a role in an epic war between light and dark spanning a thousand and one nights—or two years, eight months, and twenty-eight nights. It is a time of enormous upheaval, in which beliefs are challenged, words act like poison, silence is a disease, and a noise may contain a hidden curse. Inspired by the traditional “wonder tales” of the East, Salman Rushdie’s novel is a masterpiece about the age-old conflicts that remain in today’s world. Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights is satirical and bawdy, full of cunning and folly, rivalries and betrayals, kismet and karma, rapture and redemption. Sir Salman Rushdie is the author of twelve novels, a collection of stories, and four works of nonfiction. He has co-edited two fiction anthologies and has adapted two of his novels for other media. His books have been translated into forty languages. The list of honors they, and he, have received is far too long to summarize here.