Salman Rushdie
Presentation by Eva Carroll
INTL 3111 – Politics & Culture in Literature
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Salman Rushdie was born in 1947 to a
Muslim family in Bombay (Mumbai) India
At age 14, he was sent to boarding school
in England
Youth, Education & Early Career
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After boarding school, Rushdie studied
history at King’s College in Cambridge.
Afterwards, he worked in advertizing while
writing his first novel.
Grimus was published in 1975, but was
not widely read
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It was in 1981 that
Rushdie’s second
novel, Midnight’s
Children that won him
international fame.
The book is a
historical fiction about
the partition of India,
written in magical
realism.
Influences
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Rushdie was born the same year of the British
partitioning of British Indian Empire into what is
now India and Pakistan.
While he was in boarding school, his family
emigrated to Pakistan along with millions of
other Muslims as violence between Muslims and
Hindus rose.
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His experience of emigrating, as well as the
history and politics surrounding his family’s
history caused him to question “everything
about identity and selfhood and culture and
belief.”
His first few books were his way of dealing with
these questions and the two very different
worlds he came from – India and Britain, East
and West.
His story Imaginary Homelands is another prime
example of this wrestling.
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Rushdie’s quest brought him to the great
question:
“of how the world joins up—
not only how the East flows into the West and
the West into the East but how the past shapes
the present even as the present changes our
understanding of the past, and how the
imagined world, the location of dreams, art,
invention, and, yes, faith, sometimes leaks
across the frontier separating it from the ‘real’
place in which human beings mistakenly believe
they live.”
The Satanic Verses
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Out of this question was born his
novel, The Satanic Verses (1988).
The book and some of its characters was
inspired in part by the life of Mohammed.
The Satanic Verses refer to a group of verses in
the Quran which allegedly Mohammed claimed
to be given to him by the Angel Gabriel, but
which he later recanted as having been deceived
by the devil.
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One of the main themes of the book is doubt
regarding revelation, religious faith, and
fanaticism.
Rushdie claims it was one of it his most personal
works, and the least politically motivated.
However, many Muslims took offense at his
allusions to Mohammed, and staged protests in
countries all over the world.
The
Rushdie
Affair
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The Ayatollah Khomeini of
Iran issued a fatwa, or death
sentence, over Rushdie.
Rushdie spent the next 10
years in hiding until the fatwa
was lifted.
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The Rushdie Affair as it came to be known was a
major international event.
A number of people died either in protests or
executions (including his publisher who was
stabbed to death).
The book was banned in many countries; at the
same time it held the NY Times #1 Best Seller
spot for weeks as many bought the book to
show their support of free speech.
Rushdie still does not think the accusations of
offensive material were true, and stands by his
book as one of his finest artistic works.
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Rushdie was knighted by Queen Elizabeth
II in 2007 for his contribution to literature.
He now lives in the US and teaches at
Emory University in Georgia.
References
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts19600879
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/09/17/12091
7fa_fact_rushdie?currentPage=all
http://postcolonialstudies.emory.edu/salman-rushdie/
http://www.gradesaver.com/author/salman-rushdie/