SOURCE: "They Came for the Hot Stuff," in Nation, Vol. 262, No. 1, January 1, 1996, pp. 25-7.

Below, Hagedorn offers a positive review of The Moor's Last Sigh.

I don't review books as a rule, but could not resist the opportunity to speak up for Salman Rushdie's astonishing new work. Midnight's Children opened up the world for me as a first-time novelist struggling to find my way. How to tell the story of a young postcolonial nation like the Philippines? How to capture its chaos, humor and beauty? How to convey the heat and music of its many languages, and the wit and innovations of its hybrid English? How to portray the complex, unpredictable nature of its people? How to be fearless? Rushdie, the passionate subversive obsessed with history, language and moral ambiguity, the grand and mythic storyteller, showed me how.

The Moor's Last Sigh is Rushdie's first novel in seven...