In these nine short stories Salman Rushdie looks at what happens when East meets West, at the forces that pull his characters first in one direction, then the other. Fantasy and realism collide as a rickshaw driver writes letters describing his film star career in Bombay; a mispronunciation leads to romance and an unusual courtship in sixties London; two childhood friends turned diplomats live out in a violent world fantasies hatched by STAR TREK; and Christopher Columbus dreams of consummating his relationship with Queen Isabella. The Stories in EAST, WEST show the extraordinary range and power of Rushdie's writing. With great skill and a tenderness that is often deeply moving, Rushdie explores the complicated relationship of coloniser and colonised, the intimacy and distance, the shared history and the misunderstandings that both bind and separate East and West.