Christopher Hitchens in Conversation with Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie’s narration is the secret weapon here—equal parts seductive and surgical. He doesn’t just read the dialogue; he inhabits it, his voice dripping with the kind of dry humor that made *Midnight’s Children* a classic, but here it’s directed at Hitchens’ relentless provocations. The result is a performance that oscillates between a bemused friend and a prosecuting attorney, which feels exactly right given their history. His pacing is impeccable, drawing out Hitchens’ most inflammatory zingers just long enough to let them land before Rushdie counterpunches with his own razor-sharp wit. The audio clarity is excellent, though I did find myself wishing for a few more moments of silence between exchanges—some of their volleys land so quickly that the listener might need a beat to fully savor the exchange. That said, the brevity works against it slightly. At 76 minutes, it’s borderline too concise; there’s a sense that some threads (like their discussion of Rushdie’s fatwa) deserve deeper exploration, but the format doesn’t allow for it. And while Hitchens’ presence is magnetic, Rushdie’s narration occasionally veers into performative territory, which, while entertaining, sometimes feels like he’s playing to the gallery rather than the material. Still, these are minor quibbles. The core of this recording—two titans of reason trading blows over the state of the world—is electric. It’s the kind of audiobook that makes you want to hit rewind after every sentence, just to catch the inflection you missed the first time.