Salman Rushdie Biography

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Early life and family background -
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Ahmed Salman Rushdie was born in Bombay on 19 June 1947 during the British
Raj, into an Indian Kashmiri Muslim family. He is the son of Anis Ahmed Rushdie, a
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Cambridge-educated lawyer-turned-businessman, and Negin Bhatt, a teacher. Anis

Ahmed Rushdie was dismissed from the Indian Civil Services (ICS) after it emerged
that his birth certificate submitted by him had changed to make him appear
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younger than he was.

Rushdie has three sisters. He wrote in his 2012 memoir that his father adopted the
name Rushdie in honour of Averroes (Ibn Rushd). Rushdie grew up in Bombay and
was educated at the Cathedral and John Connon School in Fort, South Bombay,
before moving to England from India to attend the Rugby School in Rugby,
Warwickshire, and then King's College, Cambridge, from which he graduated with a
Bachelor of Arts degree in history.
Personal life -

Rushdie has been married four times. He was married to his first wife, Clarissa
Luard, Literature officer of the Arts Council of England, from 1976 to 1987 and
fathered a son, Zafar (born 1979), who is married to the London-based jazz singer
Natalie Rushdie.

He left Clarissa Luard in the mid-1980s for the Australian writer Robyn Davidson, to
whom he was introduced by their mutual friend Bruce Chatwin. His second wife was

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the American novelist Marianne Wiggins; they were married in 1988 and divorced in
1993. His third wife, from 1997 to 2004, was British editor and author Elizabeth

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West; they have a son, Milan (born 1997).

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In 2004, he married Padma Lakshmi, an Indian-American actress, model, and host

of the American reality-television show Top Chef. The marriage ended in 2007. In
1999, Rushdie had an operation to correct ptosis, a problem with the levator
palpebrae superioris muscle that causes drooping of the upper eyelid. According to
Rushdie, it made it increasingly difficult for him to open his eyes. "If I hadn't had an
operation, in a couple of years from now I wouldn't have been able to open my eyes
at all," he said.
Since 2000, Rushdie has lived in the United States, mostly near Union Square in
Lower Manhattan, New York City. He is a fan of the English football club Tottenham
Hotspur.

(Career)

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Copywriter -

Rushdie worked as a copywriter for the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather, where

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he came up with "irresistible" for Aero and "Naughty but Nice" for cream cakes, and
for the agency Ayer Barker (until 1982), for whom he wrote the line "That'll do
nicely" for American Express. Collaborating with musician Ronnie Bond, Rushdie
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wrote the words for an advertising record on behalf of the now defunct Burnley
Building Society that was recorded at Good Earth Studios, London.
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The song was called "The Best Dreams" and was sung by George Chandler. It was
while he was at Ogilvy that he wrote Midnight's Children, before becoming a
full-time writer.
Literary works -

Rushdie's first novel, Grimus (1975), a part-science fiction tale, was generally
ignored by the public and literary critics. His next novel, Midnight's Children (1981),
catapulted him to literary notability. This work won the 1981 Booker Prize and, in
1993 and 2008, was awarded the Best of the Bookers as the best novel to have
received the prize during its first 25 and 40 years. Midnight's Children follows the

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life of a child, born at the stroke of midnight as India gained its independence, who
is endowed with special powers and a connection to other children born at the dawn
of a new and tumultuous age in the history of the Indian sub-continent and the

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birth of the modern nation of India.

The character of Saleem Sinai has been compared to Rushdie. However, the author
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has refuted the idea of having written any of his characters as autobiographical,
stating, "People assume that because certain things in the character are drawn from
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your own experience, it just becomes you. In that sense, I've never felt that I've
written an autobiographical character."
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After Midnight's Children, Rushdie wrote Shame (1983), in which he depicts the
political turmoil in Pakistan, basing his characters on Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and General
Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. Shame won France's Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger (Best
Foreign Book) and was a close runner-up for the Booker Prize. Both these works of
postcolonial literature are characterised by a style of magic realism and the
immigrant outlook that Rushdie is very conscious of as a member of the Kashmiri
diaspora.

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Rushdie wrote a non-fiction book about Nicaragua in 1987 called The Jaguar Smile.
This book has a political focus and is based on his first-hand experiences and
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research at the scene of Sandinista political experiments. He became interested in

Nicaragua after he had been a neighbour of Madame Somoza, wife of the former
Nicaraguan dictator, and his son Zafar was born around the time of the Nicaraguan
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revolution. His most controversial work, The Satanic Verses, was published in 1988.

It was followed by Haroun and the Sea of Stories in 1990. Written in the shadow of
a fatwa, it is about the dangers of story-telling and an allegorical defence of the
power of stories over silence.

In addition to books, Rushdie has published many short stories, including those
collected in East, West (1994). The Moor's Last Sigh, a family epic ranging over
some 100 years of India's history was published in 1995. The Ground Beneath Her
Feet (1999) is a remaking of the myth of Orpheus that presents an alternative
history of modern rock music.

The song of the same name by U2 is one of many song lyrics included in the book;
hence Rushdie is credited as the lyricist. Following the novel Fury, set mainly in New
York and avoiding the previous sprawling narrative style that spans generations,
periods and places, Rushdie's 2005 novel Shalimar the Clown, a story about love
and betrayal set in Kashmir and Los Angeles, was hailed as a return to form by a

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number of critics.
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Critical reception -
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Rushdie has had a string of commercially successful and critically acclaimed novels.
His works have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize five times, in 1981 for
Midnight's Children, 1983 for Shame, 1988 for The Satanic Verses, 1995 for The
Moor's Last Sigh, and in 2019 for Quichotte. In 1981, he was awarded the prize. His
2005 novel Shalimar the Clown received the prestigious Hutch Crossword Book
Award, and, in the UK, was a finalist for the Whitbread Book Awards. It was
shortlisted for the 2007 International Dublin Literary Award. Rushdie's works have
spawned 30 book-length studies and over 700 articles on his writing.

Academic and other activities -

Rushdie has mentored younger Indian (and ethnic-Indian) writers, influenced an
entire generation of Indo-Anglian writers, and is an influential writer in postcolonial
literature in general. He opposed the British government's introduction of the Racial
and Religious Hatred Act, something he writes about in his contribution to Free
Expression Is No Offence, a collection of essays by several writers, published by
Penguin in November 2005.

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The Satanic Verses and The Fatwā -
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The publication of The Satanic Verses in September 1988 caused immediate
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controversy in the Islamic world because of what was seen by some to be an

irreverent depiction of Muhammad. The title refers to a disputed Muslim
tradition that is related in the book. According to this tradition, Muhammad
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(Mahound in the book) added verses (Ayah) to the Qur'an accepting three
Arabian pagan goddesses who used to be worshipped in Mecca as divine
beings.

According to the legend, Muhammad later revoked the verses, saying the
devil tempted him to utter these lines to appease the Meccans (hence the
"Satanic" verses). However, the narrator reveals to the reader that these
disputed verses were actually from the mouth of the Archangel Gabriel. The
book was banned in many countries with large Muslim communities (13 in
total: Iran, India, Bangladesh, Sudan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Kenya,
Thailand, Tanzania, Indonesia, Singapore, Venezuela, and Pakistan).
In response to the protests, on 22 January 1989, Rushdie published a
column in The Observer that called Muhammad "one of the great geniuses of
world history," but noted that Islamic doctrine holds Muhammad to be
human, and in no way perfect. He held that the novel is not "an
anti-religious novel. It is, however, an attempt to write about migration, its
stresses and transformations."

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On 14 February 1989—Valentine's Day, and also the day of his close friend
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Bruce Chatwin's funeral—a fatwā ordering Rushdie's execution was

proclaimed on Radio Tehran by Ayatollah Khomeini, the Supreme leader of
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Iran at the time, calling the book "blasphemous against Islam". Chapter IV
of the book depicts the character of an Imam in exile who returns to incite
revolt from the people of his country with no regard for their safety.

A bounty was offered for Rushdie's death, and he was thus forced to live
under police protection for several years. On 7 March 1989, the United
Kingdom and Iran broke diplomatic relations over the Rushdie controversy.
When, on BBC Radio 4, he was asked for a response to the threat, Rushdie
said, "Frankly, I wish I had written a more critical book," and "I'm very sad
that it should have happened. It's not true that this book is a blasphemy
against Islam. I doubt very much that Khomeini or anyone else in Iran has
read the book or more than selected extracts out of context." Later, he wrote
that he was "proud, then and always", of that statement; while he did not
feel his book was especially critical of Islam, "a religion whose leaders
behaved in this way could probably use a little criticism."

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The publication of the book and the fatwā sparked violence around the
world, with bookstores firebombed. Muslim communities in several nations in

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the West held public rallies, burning copies of the book. Several people
associated with translating or publishing the book were attacked, seriously
injured, and even killed.
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Many more people died in riots in some countries. Despite the danger posed
by the fatwā, Rushdie made a public appearance at London's Wembley
Stadium on 11 August 1993, during a concert by U2. In 2010, U2 bassist
Adam Clayton recalled that "lead vocalist Bono had been calling Salman
Rushdie from the stage every night on the Zoo TV tour. When we played
Wembley, Salman showed up in person and the stadium erupted. You [could]
tell from [drummer] Larry Mullen, Jr.'s face that we weren't expecting it.
Salman was a regular visitor after that. He had a backstage pass and he
used it as often as possible. For a man who was supposed to be in hiding, it
was remarkably easy to see him around the place."

On 24 September 1998, as a precondition to the restoration of diplomatic

relations with the UK, the Iranian government, then headed by Mohammad
Khatami, gave a public commitment that it would "neither support nor
hinder assassination operations on Rushdie."

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Hardliners in Iran have continued to reaffirm the death sentence. In early
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2005, Khomeini's fatwā was reaffirmed by Iran's current spiritual leader,

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a message to Muslim pilgrims making the annual
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pilgrimage to Mecca. Additionally, the Revolutionary Guards declared that

the death sentence on him is still valid.

Rushdie has reported that he still receives a "sort of Valentine's card" from
Iran each year on 14 February letting him know the country has not
forgotten the vow to kill him and has jokingly referred it as "my unfunny
Valentine" in a reference to the song "My Funny Valentine".
He said, "It's reached the point where it's a piece of rhetoric rather than a
real threat." Despite the threats on Rushdie personally, he said that his
family has never been threatened and that his mother, who lived in Pakistan
during the later years of her life, even received outpourings of support.
Rushdie himself has been prevented from entering Pakistan, however.
A former bodyguard to Rushdie, Ron Evans, planned to publish a book
recounting the behaviour of the author during the time he was in hiding.

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Evans claimed that Rushdie tried to profit financially from the fatwa and was
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suicidal, but Rushdie dismissed the book as a "bunch of lies" and took legal
action against Evans, his co-author and their publisher. On 26 August 2008,
Rushdie received an apology at the High Court in London from all three
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parties. A memoir of his years of hiding, Joseph Anton, was released on 18

September 2012. Joseph Anton was Rushdie's secret alias.