Salman Rushdie

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**Salman Rushdie** <tr><td colspan="2" style="text-align: center;">Image:Salman-Rushdie-1.jpg
Salman Rushdie, giving a talk.</td></tr>
Born:	June 19, 1947 solan, India
Occupation(s):	Novelist <tr><th style="text-align: right;">Genre(s):</th><td>Magic realism</td></tr>

Salman Rushdie (born Ahmed Salman Rushdie, Urdu: أحمد سلمان رشدی‎, on June 19, 1947, in Bombay, India) is a British-Indian essayist and author of fiction, most of which is set on the Indian subcontinent. His narrative style, blending the supernatural with more realistic settings, has been described as magic realism. His magnum opus, Midnight's Children, was in 1993 declared the "Booker of Bookers". He is best known for the violent criticism of his book The Satanic Verses (1988) provoked in the Muslim community. After death threats and a fatwa by Ruhollah Khomeini, calling for his assassination, he spent years underground, appearing in public only sporadically. Between 2004 and 2006 he served as president of the PEN American Center.

1 Personal life
2 Career
- 2.1 List of published works
3 Awards
4 The Satanic Verses controversy
5 October 2006 Straw-veil controversy
6 Salman Rushdie in popular culture
7 References
8 See also
9 External links
- 9.1 Video

[edit] Personal life

Rushdie grew up in a Muslim family in Mumbai, India. When he was 14, his family moved to Pakistan. As a youth, he was educated at Cathedral and John Connon School in Mumbai and Rugby School in Warwickshire, England. He attended King's College at Cambridge in England. Following an advertising career with the firm Ayer Barker, he became a full-time writer. In 2004, Rushdie married his fourth wife, Indian model and actress Padma Lakshmi. He lives in London and New York City.

[edit] Career

His early career was in advertising and he has been credited with writing the slogan "Naughty but Nice" used to promote cream cakes in Great Britain through out the 1970 and 1980s .<ref>Blake, A. (2001) Salman Rushdie: A Beginner's Guide: 5. Hodder and Stoughton.</ref>

His writing career began with Grimus, a 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 that 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.

Rushdie is highly influenced by (and, in turn, influential in) modern literature. In his nonfiction collection 'Step Across the Line,' he professes his admiration for the Italian writer Italo Calvino, the Indian writer Arundhati Roy, and the American writer Thomas Pynchon, amongst others. 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 influenced by Mikhail Bulgakov's classic Russian novel The Master and Margarita^{[citation needed]}.

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, which presents an alternative history of modern rock music. Midnight's Children receives accolades for being Rushdie's best, most flowing and inspiring work, and many of Rushdie's post-1989 works have been critically acclaimed and commercially successful.

Rushdie has also long mentored - though quietly - younger Indian (and ethnic-Indian) writers, and can be said to have influenced an entire generation of 'Indo-Anglian' writers; it would not be an exaggeration to say that he has had a hand in shaping (and re-shaping) post-colonial literature in general^{[citation needed]}. He has received many plaudits 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 was the President of PEN American Center from 2003-2005.

His newest book, Shalimar the Clown, released in September 2005, was a finalist for the Whitbread Book Awards.

He opposes the British government's introduction of the Racial and Religious Hatred Act, something he writes about in his contribution to Free Expression Is No Offence, a collection of essays published by Penguin in November 2005. Avowedly secular, Rushdie is a self-described atheist.

Rushdie frequently speaks at the Cheltenham Festival of Literature, held annually in the United Kingdom. His last appearance was in 2005 to publicise Shalimar the Clown. During the Satanic Verses controversy his appearance caused the entire room to be "locked down" by his security team.

Salman Rushdie is a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association.

On October 6, 2006, it was announced that Rushdie would be joining the Emory University faculty as Distinguished Writer in Residence for the next five years.

[edit] List of published works

Grimus (1975)
Midnight's Children (1981)
Shame (1983)
The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey (1987)
The Satanic Verses (1988)
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)
The East is Blue (essay, 2004)
Shalimar the Clown (2005)

[edit] Awards

Awards that Rushdie has won include the following:

Booker Prize for Fiction
James Tait Black Memorial Prize (Fiction)
Arts Council Writers' Award
English-Speaking Union Award
"Booker of Bookers" or the best novel among the Booker Prize winners for Fiction
Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger
Whitbread Novel Award
Writers' Guild Award (Children's Book)

[edit] The Satanic Verses controversy

The publication of The Satanic Verses in September 1988 caused immediate controversy in the Islamic world due to what was perceived as an irreverent depiction of the prophet Muhammad. The title refers to a Muslim tradition that is related in the book. According to it, Muhammad (Mahound in the book) added verses to the Qur'an accepting three goddesses that used to be worshipped in Mecca as divine beings. According to the legend Muhammad later revoked the verses, saying the devil tempted him to utter these lines to appease the Meccans (hence the Satanic Verses). The book was banned in many countries with large Muslim communities.

On 14 February 1989, a fatwa requiring Rushdie's execution was proclaimed on Radio Tehran by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran, calling the book "blasphemous against Islam," and a bounty was offered for the death of Rushdie who was thus forced to live in hiding for years to come.

On 7 March 1989, the United Kingdom and Iran broke diplomatic relations over the Rushdie controversy.

Meanwhile, further violence occurred around the world, with the firebombing of bookstores. Muslim communities throughout the world held public rallies in which copies of the book were burned. Several people associated with translating or publishing the book were attacked and seriously injured or killed. In late 1990, he apologized to Muslims and even formally converted to Islam<ref>Interview with Rushdie. Reasononline.</ref>, but recanted a short time later describing it as the 'biggest mistake of my life' in an interview he gave to Anne McElvoy of The Times published on August 26, 1995.

On 24 September 1998, as a precondition to the restoration of diplomatic relations with Britain, Iran gave a public commitment that it would do nothing to harm Rushdie. <ref>26 December 1990: Iranian leader upholds Rushdie fatwa. BBC News: On This Day. Retrieved on 2006-10-10.</ref> But soon after restoration of diplomatic relations, Iranian authorities reversed themselves and reaffirmed the death threats. <ref>Rubin, Michael (1 September 2006). Can Iran Be Trusted?. The Middle East Forum: Promoting American Interests. Retrieved on 2006-10-10.</ref> In early 2005, Khomeini's fatwa against Rushdie was reaffirmed by Iran's spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a message to Muslim pilgrims making the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.<ref name="webster-bbc">Webster, Philip, Ben Hoyle and Ramita Navai (January 20 2005). Ayatollah revives the death fatwa on Salman Rushdie. The Times Online. Retrieved on 2006-10-10.</ref> Additionally, the Revolutionary Guards have declared that the death sentence on British author Salman Rushdie is still valid.<ref>Iran adamant over Rushdie fatwa. BBC News (12 February 2005). Retrieved on 2006-10-10.</ref> Iran has rejected requests to withdraw the fatwa on the basis that only the person who issued it may withdraw it. <ref name="webster-bbc"/>

See The Satanic Verses for a timeline of the events.

[edit] October 2006 Straw-veil controversy

Salman Rushdie has stated that he supports the Leader of the House of Commons Jack Straw in his recent statements criticising the Islamic veil, saying that his three sisters would never wear it, that it was a limitation on women, and that it "was not to his liking."<ref>Wagner, Thomas (10 October 2006). Blair, Rushdie support former British foreign secretary who ignited veil debate. SignOnSanDiego.com. Retrieved on 2006-10-10.</ref>

[edit] Salman Rushdie in popular culture

In the episode "The Implant" of the U.S. television sitcom Seinfeld (1989–1998), Kramer claims to have seen Salman Rushdie in a health club. When questioned by Kramer in a sauna, the man says that he is a writer and his name is Sal Bass.
Peter's Friends (1992), in which he signs a copy of his own controversial novel, The Satanic Verses in archive footage over the opening credits. Very brief, it could easily go unnoticed.
Bridget Jones's Diary (2001): A cameo as himself, particularly memorable as both Hugh Grant and Renee Zellweger ask him for directions to the lavatory.
The Rutles 2 (2005): Rushdie appears several times throughout the film as one of the celebrity commentators on the career and musical output of The Rutles.
On May 12, 2006, Rushdie was a guest host on The Charlie Rose Show, where he interviewed filmmaker Deepa Mehta about her 2005 film, Water.
June, 2006 - Rushdie was interviewed for Bill Moyers PBS special <ref>Faith & Reason</ref>.
Rushdie and Bono co-wrote the song "The Ground Beneath Her Feet" for the book of the same name; the song was later recorded by U2 for the soundtrack to the film The Million Dollar Hotel.
Rushdie is a character in a 1990 film entitled International Gorillay (International Guerillas) produced in Pakistan. This film made headlines when the British censors refused to allow it a certificate thus officially banning the film outright. However a month later, following a letter by Salman Rushdie himself, the ban was lifted [1].