Salman Rushdie

The person Ahmad Salman Rushdie

Ahmad Salman Rushdie was born 19 June 1947, into a Muslim family in Bombay, India. He was educated in India and in England, before he settled in London. After he had studied history, he was an advertising copywriter. As an Indo-British writer, he inhabits the postcolonialm and multiculturalism recognisable in his novels, children's books and essays.

Rushdie's magnified novels, essays, and children's books

Rushdie won around 30 prizes and titles with his work in Sweden, Italy, USA, Austria, India, and Great Britain, although his first novel "Grimus" (1975) was unsuccessful. With his second novel "Midnight's Children", he won the Booker Prize in 1984, and the "Booker of Bookers" in 1993. With "The Satanic Verses", he won the Whitbread Prize in 1988. While "Midnight's Children", "Shame", and "The Moor's Last Sigh" are Indo-Anglian texts, "The Satanic Verses" and "The Ground Beneath Her Feet" are not set principally in India or Pakistan. His work deals with religious and intercultural topics, and his best work is always politically controversial as "The Satanic Verses". His work deals with contemporary India and Pakistan, and with Western cities with large populations drawn from parts of the world which emerged from Western imperial conquest, what makes Rushdie not only a postmodernist, but also a postcolonialist.

Rushdie, the postmodernist and his controversial novels

Most critics accept that Salman Rushdie is a postmodern writer, although it is hard to find a category for the complexity of design in the novels. His works, especially his novels, are a playful acknowledgement of the power of popular culture to engage and move the people. The casual invention of parallel worlds in space and time and the debt to Bollywood film techniques indicate the postmodern character. His works help us understand the major cultural shifts of the last 50 years. Rushdie raises uncomfortable issues about identity in a fast-changing world without steady values. That is why he got into big trouble in the late 1980's when he had offended many Indians and Pakistani due to the politically controversial topics in "Midnight's Children" (1981), "Shame" (1983), and "The Satanic Verses" (1988). "The Satanic Verses" caused controversy by Muslims, who called the book blasphemous and arranged book burning events. Furthermore, Ayatollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of Iran at that time, proclaimed a fatwā ordering Rushdie's execution on 14 February 1989. In relation to the book burning events, Rushdie's work offers a defence of "literature" as a medium for free speech and opinion. His work forces us to rethink about literature: about the reason for literature, about the ability of literature, about the limits of literature.

Bibliography

Blake, Andrew. Salman Rushdie: A Beginner’s Guide. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2001.

Cundy, Catherine. Salman Rushdie. Manchester: MUP, 1996.