Salman Rushdie's Cities Reconfigurational Politics and the Contemporary Urban Imagination

Bombay, London, New York and Delhi, cities are central to Salman Rushdie's novels. Reading his urban representations, this study explains exactly how Rushdie has contributed to our understanding of the postcolonial, the contemporary, the local and the global city. It looks beyond the typical urban boundaries favoured by Rushdie scholars, discussing Mexico City and Karachi and includes a wider survey of contemporary writers and commentators on urban fictions and urban geography. The result is an informed investigation into the relations that exist between cities. Linking Rushdie's urban portrayals to those of Auster, Ackroyd and Desai as well as Dickens, Bulgakov, and Calvino, this study forms further connections with The Indian epics and Hindu, Ancient Greek and Aztec mythologies. Rushdie's ability to unsettle the constructs of land, the nation and the colonies is realized and the ability cities have of re-constructing one another is charted. This is an important critical reflection on the urban imagination, reaching new understanding of what is contemporary in literary cities.

Acknowledgements \ Abbreviations \ An Alphabet of Rushdie's Cities \ 1. Introduction: Salman Rushdie's Cities and Reconfigurational Politics \ 2. Partition and after: Bombay Re/beginnings and Subcontinental Twin Cities in Midnight's Children and Shame \ 3. Bombay, London, Jahilia: Di/versifications and Di/versions in The Satanic Verses \ 4. War of the Worlds: Bombay Diptychs and Triptychs in The Moor's Last Sigh \ 5. Quaking Solid Ground: Trojan Falls and Roman Rises in The Ground beneath Her Feet \ 6. Metropolitan Desires: Glocalist Seductions in Fury and Shalimar the Clown \ 7. Mirrors-for-cities: Florence and Fatehpur Sikri, or Machiavelli and ‘the Prince' in The Enchantress of Florence \ Afterword: Urban Thresholds: the Respectorate of I and the Insultana of the Otter Way \ Notes \  Bibliography \ Index