Salman Rushdie - Biography

Last Editor: slvstk1				Salman Rushdie Biography -   Name : Salman Rushdie Profession : Indian-born British essayist and author of fiction Birth Details : born Ahmed Salman Rushdie, Urdu: أحمد سلمان رشدی, Hindi: अहà¥�मद सलमान रश

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Salman Rushdie (born Ahmed Salman Rushdie, Urdu: أحمد سلمان رشدی, Hindi: अह�मद सलमान रश�डी on June 19, 1947, in Bombay, India) is an Indian-born British essayist and author of fiction, most of which is set on the Indian subcontinent. He grew up in Mumbai (then Bombay) attended Rugby School, Warwickshire, then King's College, Cambridge in England. Following an advertising career with Ayer Barker, he became a full-time writer. His narrative style, blending myth and fantasy with real life, has been described as magic realism. In 2004, Rushdie married for the fourth time, this time to prominent Indian model and actress Padma Lakshmi. He is best known for the violent criticism his book The Satanic Verses inspired in radical Muslims. After death threats and a fatwa calling for his death, he spent years underground, appearing in public only sporadically. He is still under supervision by the British Secret services and has constant bodyguards. 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 often considered his best work to date. It also significantly shaped the course that Indian writing in English was to follow over the next decade. This work was later awarded the 'Booker of Bookers' prize in 1993 – after being selected as the best novel to be awarded the Booker Prize in its first 25 years. 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 Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. Both these works are characterised by, apart from the style of magic 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 plaudits 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. Rushdie is the President of PEN American Center. His newest book, Shalimar the Clown, released in September 2005, was a finalist for the Whitbread Book Awards. He opposes the British government's attempt to introduce the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, something he writes about in his contribution to Free Expression Is No Offence, a collection of essays published by Penguin in November 2005. List of published works Grimus (1975) Midnight's Children (1981) Shame (1983) The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey (1987) The Satanic Verses (1988) Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990) Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism, 1981-1991 (1992) East, West (1994) The Moor's Last Sigh (1995) The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999) Fury (2001) Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002 (2002) The East is Blue (essay, 2004) Shalimar the Clown (2005) Awards that Rushdie has won include the following: Booker Prize for Fiction James Tait Black Memorial Prize (Fiction) Arts Council Writers' Award English-Speaking Union Award "Booker of Bookers" or the best novel among the Booker Prize winners for Fiction Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger Whitbread Novel Award Writers' Guild Award (Children's Book)