Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie (born Ahmed Salman Rushdie on June 19, 1947, in Bombay, India) is an Indian-born British essayist and author of fiction, most of which is set on the Indian subcontinent. He grew up in Mumbai (then Bombay) attended Rugby School, Warwickshire, then King's College, Cambridge in England. He is a British citizen. Following an advertising career with Ayer Barker, he became a full-time writer. His narrative style, blending myth and fantasy with real life, has been described as connected with magic realism. In 2004, Rushdie married for the fourth time, this time to prominent Indian model and actress Padma Lakshmi.

Career

His writing career began with Grimus, a fantastic tale, part-science fiction, which was generally ignored by the book-buying public and literary critics. His next novel, Midnight's Children, however, catapulted him to literary fame and is often considered his best work to date. It also significantly shaped the course Indian writing in English was to follow over the next decade. This work was later awarded the 'Booker of Bookers' prize in 1993 – after being selected as the best novel to be awarded the Booker Prize in its first 25 years. After the success of Midnight's Children, Rushdie wrote a short novel, Shame, where he depicts the political turmoil in Pakistan by basing his characters on Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. Both these works are characterised by, apart from the style of magic realism, the immigrant outlook of which Rushdie is so very conscious.

Related Topics:
Grimus - Science fiction - Midnight's Children - Novel - Booker Prize - Shame - Pakistan - Zulfikar Ali Bhutto - Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq

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Rushdie is also highly influenced by modern literature. Midnight's Children borrows themes from Günter Grass's novel The Tin Drum, which Rushdie claims inspired him to begin writing. The Satanic Verses is also clearly influenced by Mikhail Bulgakov's classic Russian novel The Master and Margarita.

Related Topics:
Günter Grass - The Tin Drum - The Satanic Verses - Mikhail Bulgakov - The Master and Margarita

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India and Pakistan were the themes, respectively, of Midnight's Children and Shame. In his later works, Rushdie turned towards the Western world with The Moor's Last Sigh, exploring commercial and cultural links between India and the Iberian peninsula, and The Ground Beneath Her Feet, in which the influence of American rock 'n' roll on India plays a role. Midnight's Children receives accolades for being Rushdie's best, most flowing and inspiring work, but none of Rushdie's post-1989 works has had the same critical reception or caused the same controversy as The Satanic Verses.

Related Topics:
The Moor's Last Sigh - Iberian peninsula - The Ground Beneath Her Feet - Rock 'n' roll

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His newest book, Shalimar the Clown was released in September 2005.

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Rushdie received many other awards for his writings including the European Union's Aristeion Prize for Literature. He is also a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres. Rushdie is the President of PEN American Center.

Related Topics:
European Union's Aristeion Prize for Literature - Royal Society of Literature - PEN American Center

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List of published works

• Grimus (1975)
• Midnight's Children (1980)
• Shame (1983)
• The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey (1987)
• The Satanic Verses (1989)
• Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990)
• Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism, 1981-1991 (1992)
• East, West (1994)
• The Moor's Last Sigh (1995)
• The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999)
• Fury (2001)
• Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002 (2002)
• Shalimar the Clown (2005)