Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (b.1947) is an Indian-born British novelist whose writing on touchy religious and political themes have made him a controversial literary célèbre.
Born to a well-to-do Muslim family in Bombay, India, and educated at Cambridge, Rushdie worked as an actor and as an advertising copywriter before taking up writing full-time after the massive success of his second novel, the Booker Prize-winning Midnight’s Children (1981.)
The Satanic Verses (1988) made Rushdie a household name. This novel provoked the denunciation of Islāmic authorities who decried it blasphemous. Its sale was banned in India, Pakistan, South Africa, and Iran. In 1989, Muslims in England burned copies of the novel, and protests in Pakistan resulted in killings and injuries. Rushdie was sentenced to death by Iranian religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini. In 1998, the Iranian government revoked the death sentence, and Rushdie returned to public life.
Rushdie’s other notable works include The Moor’s Last Sigh (1995,) The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999,) Fury (2001,) Shalimar the Clown (2005,) and The Enchantress of Florence (2008.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Salman Rushdie
Most of what matters in your life takes place in your absence.
—Salman Rushdie
One of the extraordinary things about human events is that the unthinkable becomes thinkable.
—Salman Rushdie
Topics: Humanity, Events
Where there is no belief, there is no blasphemy.
—Salman Rushdie
If you want to tell the untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you’ve got to find a language. Which goes for film as well as prose, for documentary as well as autobiography. Use the wrong language, and you’re dumb and blind.
—Salman Rushdie
Topics: Language
In this world without quiet corners, there can be no easy escapes from history, from hullabaloo, from terrible, unquiet fuss.
—Salman Rushdie
Topics: Stress
What one writer can make in the solitude of one room is something no power can easily destroy.
—Salman Rushdie
Topics: Writers
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