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Salman Rushdie

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Salman Rushdie (born June 19, 1947, in Bombay, India) is an essayist and author of fiction, most of which is set on the Indian subcontinent. He grew up in Mumbai (then Bombay) and then graduated with honours from King's College, Cambridge in England. His narrative style, blending myth and fantasy with real life, has been described as connected with magical realism. In 2004, Rushdie married for the second time, this time to prominent Indian model and actress Padma Lakshmi.

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Salman Rushdie

Works

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 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 – being the best novel to be awarded the Booker Prize in its first 25 years. This was seen in India as an attack on the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and Rushdie was forced to leave India because of threats. The success of inciting violent reaction to his work produced a lot of publicity and sold books a formula he repeated again. 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 Zia ul-Haq. Both these works are characterised by, apart from the style of magical realism, the immigrant outlook of which Rushdie is so very conscious.

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.

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.

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.

The Satanic Verses controversy

The publication of The Satanic Verses in September 1988 caused immediate controversy in the Fundamentalist Muslim world, due to its irreverent depiction of the prophet Muhammad (see fatwa, goddess). India banned the book on October 5, South Africa on November 24, and Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Somalia, Bangladesh, Sudan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Qatar followed within weeks. The book was ceremonially burned in Bradford, England, on January 14, 1989. February 12 in Islamabad five people were killed by police gunfire during a protest.

February 14, 1989, a fatwa promising his execution was placed on him by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran, calling his book "blasphemous against Islam". Furthermore, Khomeini condemned Rushdie for the crime of "apostasy" – i.e. attempting to abandon the Islamic faith – which according to the Hadith is punishable by death. This was due to Rushdie's communication through the novel that he no longer believes in Islam. Khomeini called on all "zealous Muslims" to execute the writer, as well as those of the publishers of the book who knew about the concepts of the book. On February 24 Khomeini then placed a three-million-US dollar bounty for the death of Rushdie. Rushdie lived for a time under British-financed security.

At the University of California, Berkeley, bookstores carrying the book were firebombed. February 24 in Bombay, 12 people in a protest at the British Embassy died in police gunfire. Several people died in Egypt and other nations. Muslim communities throughout the world held public rallies in which copies of the book were burned. In 1991, his Japanese translator Hitoshi Igarashi was stabbed and killed in Tokyo, and his Italian translator was beaten and stabbed in Milan. In 1993, his Norwegian publisher William Nygaard was shot and severely injured in an attack outside his house in Oslo.

Rushdie's notorious friendships with occult groups and group members such as Anton LaVey and book shows at popular occult gatherings has linked him to occult activity. In various interviews Rushdie has professed to practicing occcult activites including alchemy. This seemed to only fuel the fire of media and critics. His accusations and critical comments regarding the fatwa later made him a marked man in the Muslim community. Famous people in the Muslim community stepped out in defense of their Muslim faith to protect their image.

Even popular musician Yusuf Islam (aka Cat Stevens) indirectly yet infamously stated his agreement with the fatwa. But later in 1989, Yusuf Islam said in a British television documentary that he wasn't against the death sentence in principle: Rather than go to a demonstration where Rushdie would be burned in effigy, "I would have hoped that it'd be the real thing" he said. If Rushdie showed up at his door, he said he "might ring somebody who might do more damage to him than he would like... I'd try to phone the Ayatollah Khomeini and tell him exactly where this man is." The New York Times reported that he stood by his statements in a subsequent interview. [1]

In 1990 Rushdie published an essay In Good Faith to appease his critics and issued an apology in which he seems to have reaffirmed his respect for Islam. However, Iranian clerics did not retract the fatwa. Rushdie has made further statements to defend his book but still many in the Muslim community consider him a wanted man.

In 1997 the bounty was doubled, and the next year the highest Iranian state prosecutor restated his support. After the death of Khomeini, the Iranian Government publicly committed itself in 1998 not to carry out the death sentence against Rushdie. This was agreed to in the context of a larger deal between Iran and the UK to normalise relations. Rushdie afterward declared that he would stop living in hiding. Some believe that the fatwa died with the Ayatolla, but some fundamentalist Islamic media allegedly stated:

"The responsibility for carrying out the fatwa is not the exclusive responsibility of Iran. It is the religious duty of all Muslims – those who have the ability or the means – to carry it out. It does not require any reward. In fact, those who carry out this edict in hopes of a monetary reward are acting against Islamic injunctions."

In 1999 an Iranian foundation put a 2.8 Million USD bounty on Rushdie's head.

Bibliography

Film Appearances

  • Bridget Jones's Diary (2001): A hilarious cameo as himself, particularly memorable as both Hugh Grant and Renee Zellweger ask him for directions to the lavatory. Rushdie reminds the viewer of an aged River Phoenix, both in dynamism and comic timing.
  • 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, and could easily go unnoticed. In terms of buoyancy, critics likened his performance to those given by the late John Candy.
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