Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie[a] CH FRSL (born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist.
[2] His work often combines
magical realism with historical fiction, is primarily dealing with connections, disruptions, and migrations between
Eastern and
Western civilizations, set on the
Indian subcontinent.
Rushdie's second novel,
Midnight's Children (1981), won the
Booker Prize in 1981 and was deemed to be "the best novel of all winners" on two occasions, marking the
25th and the
40th anniversary of the prize.
His fourth novel, The Satanic Verses (1988), was the subject of controversy, provoking protests from Muslims. Death threats were made against him, including a fatwa calling for his assassination issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, in 1989. The British government put Rushdie under police protection.
In 1983, Rushdie was elected a fellow of the
Royal Society of Literature. He was appointed
Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France in 1999.
[3] In 2007, he was
knighted for his services to literature.
[4] In 2008,
The Times ranked him thirteenth on its list of the 50 greatest
British writers since 1945.
[5] Since 2000, Rushdie has lived in the United States. He was named Distinguished Writer in Residence at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of
New York University in 2015.
[6] Earlier, he taught at
Emory University. He was elected to the
American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2012, he published
Joseph Anton: A Memoir, an account of his life in the wake of the controversy over
The Satanic Verses.
On 12 August 2022, Rushdie was
attacked during a speech in New York. A man rushed the stage and stabbed Rushdie several times just before he was scheduled to deliver a lecture in
Chautauqua, New York.
[7]