Salman Rushdie

Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie Kt. (born June 19, 1947) is an Indian-British novelist and essayist. He first achieved fame with his second novel, Midnight’s Children (1981), which won the Booker Prize in 1981. Much of his early fiction is set at least partly on the Indian subcontinent. His style is often classified as magical realism, while a dominant theme of his work is the story of the many connections, disruptions and migrations between the Eastern and Western world. His fourth novel, The Satanic Verses (1988), led to protests from Muslims in several countries, some of which were violent. Faced with death threats and a fatwā (religious edict) issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Supreme Leader of Iran, which called for him to be killed, he spent nearly a decade largely underground, appearing in public only sporadically. In June 2007, he was appointed a Knight Bachelor for “services to literature”, which “thrilled and humbled” him. He also holds, in France, the highest rank — Commandeur — in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 2007, he began a five-year term as Distinguished Writer in Residence at Emory University. In May 2008 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His latest novel is The Enchantress of Florence, published in June 2008. In July 2008 Midnight’s Children won a public vote to be named the Best of the Booker, the best novel to win the Booker Prize in the award’s 40-year history.