From Salman Rushdie, one of the great writers of our time, comes a spellbinding work of fiction that blends history, mythology, and a timeless love story. A lush, richly layered novel in which our world has been plunged into an age of unreason,<i>Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights</i> is a breathtaking achievement and an enduring testament to the power of storytelling.<br><br>In the near future, after a storm strikes New York City, the strangenesses begin. A down-to-earth gardener finds that his feet no longer touch the ground. A graphic novelist awakens in his bedroom to a mysterious entity that resembles his own sub–Stan Lee creation. Abandoned at the mayor’s office, a baby identifies corruption with her mere presence, marking the guilty with blemishes and boils. A seductive gold digger is soon tapped to combat forces beyond imagining.<br><br>Unbeknownst to them, they are all descended from the whimsical, capricious, wanton creatures known as the jinn, who live in a world separated from ours by a veil. 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.<br><br>Once the line between worlds is breached on a grand scale, 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.<br><br>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.<i>Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights</i> is satirical and bawdy, full of cunning and folly, rivalries and betrayals, kismet and karma, rapture and redemption.<br><br><b>Advance praise for <i>Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights</i></b><br><b></b><br>“In his latest novel, [Salman] Rushdie invents his own cultural narrative—one that blends elements of<i>One Thousand and One Nights,</i> Homeric epics, and sci-fi and action/adventure comic books. . . . Referencing Henry James, Mel Brooks, Mickey Mouse, Gracian, Bravo TV, and Aristotle, among others, Rushdie provides readers with an intellectual treasure chest cleverly disguised as a comic pop-culture apocalyptic caprice.”<b>—<i>Publishers Weekly</i> (starred review)</b><br><b></b><br><b>Praise for Salman Rushdie’s <i>The Enchantress of Florence</i></b><br><br>“A romance of beauty and power from Italy to India . . . so delightful an homage to Renaissance magic and wonder.”<b>—Michael Dirda,<i>The Washington Post Book World</i></b><br><br>“This is ‘history’ jubilantly mixed with postmodernist magic realism.”<b>—Joyce Carol Oates,<i>The New York Review of Books</i></b><br><br>“A baroque whirlwind of a narrative . . . [Rushdie helps] us escape from the present into a dreamlike past that ultimately makes us more aware of the dangers and illusions of our everyday lives.”<b>—Alan Cheuse,<i>Chicago Tribune</i></b><br><br>“Brilliant . . . Rushdie’s sumptuous mixture of history and fable is magnificent.”<b>—Ursula K. Le Guin,<i>The Guardian</i> (London)</b>