The Penguin Podcast is back! Listen Now
Victory City

Victory City

Summary

She will breathe a new empire into life – but all worlds can escape their creator…

‘Full of adventure… A celebration of the power of storytelling’ GUARDIAN

In the wake of an unimportant battle between two long-forgotten kingdoms, a nine-year-old girl has a divine encounter that will change the course of history. Pampa Kampana becomes a vessel for a goddess, who tells her that she will be instrumental in the rise of a great city called Bisnaga, ‘victory city’.

Over the next two hundred and fifty years, Pampa Kampana’s life becomes deeply interwoven with Bisnaga’s as she attempts to make good on the task that the goddess set for her: to give women equal agency in a patriarchal world. But all stories have a way of getting away from their creator, and Bisnaga is no exception.

‘Mesmerising’ ELIF SHAFAK, author of The Island of Missing Trees

‘A total pleasure to read’ SUNDAY TIMES

‘One of the planet’s greatest writers’ EVENING STANDARD

‘A triumph… Enthralling’ I

***A FINANCIAL TIMES AND THE TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR***
***A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK***

Reviews

  • In its haunting, uncanny, predictive power Victory City shows once again why his work will always matter.
    New York Times

About the author

Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie is the author of fifteen previous novels, including Midnight's Children (for which he won the Booker Prize and the Best of the Booker), The Satanic Verses, and Quichotte (which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize). A former president of PEN American Center, Rushdie was knighted in 2007 for services to literature and was made a Companion of Honour in the Queen's last Birthday Honours list in 2022.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more