This is the writer's voice, new fiction from The New Yorker.

I'm Deborah Treasman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.

On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Salman Rushdie read his story,

The Old Man in the Piazza, from the November 23, 2020 issue of the magazine.

Rushdie has published 12 novels, including the Booker Prize-winning Midnight's Children,

The Satanic Verses, The Golden House, and most recently Kishot, which came out last year.

Now here's Selman Rushdie.

The Old Man in the Piazza.

Every day at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, when the sun's heat has begun to diminish,

the old man comes into the piazza. He walks slowly, shuffling his feet,

which are encased in dusty brown loafers. He is wearing most days a dark blue jacket muttoned

all the way up to the neck, and navy pants that fasten with a drawstring at the waist.

His hair is white, and there is a beret on his head. He goes to the

only cafe in the piazza, the cafe of the fountain, and sits on a wooden chair at a wooden table,

and orders a small, strong coffee. At 6pm, he orders a beer and a sandwich.

At 8pm, he rises, wipes his lips, and shuffles away, presumably, to his home.

We do not need to know where he lives.

Everything of any significance in his life has happened and will happen right here in this little piazza.

He takes his seat. He is the audience, an audience of one.

The show is about to begin.

It is a piazza into which seven narrow roads debouch, one at each corner and one each

at the midpoint of three of the piazza's four sides. Only the side with the church is

...