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'''Ahmed Salman Rushdie''' ({{lang-hi|अख़्मद सल्मान रश्दी}} ]:{{lang|ur|سلمان رشدی}}; born ] ]) is a ]-]n novelist and essayist. He first achieved fame with his second novel, '']'' (1981), which won the ]. Much of his fiction is set on the ]. Increasingly, however, the dominant theme of his work has become the long, rich and often fraught story of the many connections, disruptions and migrations between the East and the West. | ||
His fourth ], '']'' (1988), provoked violent reactions from Muslims all over the world. After death threats and a '']'' (religious ruling) issued by ] ] calling for his assassination, he spent years underground, appearing in public only sporadically. During the last decade, however, he has resumed a normal literary life. In June 2007, he was appointed a ] for "services to literature".<ref>http://www.honours.gov.uk/upload/assets/www.honours.gov.uk/queens_birthday_list2007.pdf</ref> The announcement met with disapproval from some Muslim nations and communities, <ref>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6760927.stm</ref>, with some claiming that the "may spark ]".<ref>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6763119.stm</ref> | His fourth ], '']'' (1988), provoked violent reactions from Muslims all over the world. After death threats and a '']'' (religious ruling) issued by ] ] calling for his assassination, he spent years underground, appearing in public only sporadically. During the last decade, however, he has resumed a normal literary life. In June 2007, he was appointed a ] for "services to literature".<ref>http://www.honours.gov.uk/upload/assets/www.honours.gov.uk/queens_birthday_list2007.pdf</ref> The announcement met with disapproval from some Muslim nations and communities, <ref>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6760927.stm</ref>, with some claiming that the "may spark ]".<ref>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6763119.stm</ref> |
Revision as of 03:24, 19 June 2007
Salman Rushdie OBE | |
---|---|
Born | (1947-06-19) June 19, 1947 (age 77) Bombay, Bombay Presidency, India |
Occupation | Author |
Genre | Magic Realism |
Ahmed Salman Rushdie (Template:Lang-hi Urdu:سلمان رشدی; born 19 June 1947) is a British-Indian novelist and essayist. He first achieved fame with his second novel, Midnight's Children (1981), which won the Booker Prize. Much of his fiction is set on the subcontinent of India. Increasingly, however, the dominant theme of his work has become the long, rich and often fraught story of the many connections, disruptions and migrations between the East and the West.
His fourth novel, The Satanic Verses (1988), provoked violent reactions from Muslims all over the world. After death threats and a fatwa (religious ruling) issued by Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini calling for his assassination, he spent years underground, appearing in public only sporadically. During the last decade, however, he has resumed a normal literary life. In June 2007, he was appointed a Knight Bachelor for "services to literature". The announcement met with disapproval from some Muslim nations and communities, , with some claiming that the "may spark terrorism".
Personal life
The only son of Anis Ahmed Rushdie, a lawyer turned businessman, and his wife, the former Negin Butt, a teacher, Rushdie was born into a Muslim family in Mumbai (then called Bombay), India. He was educated at Cathedral and John Connon School in Mumbai and Rugby School and King's College, Cambridge, where he read history. Following an advertising career with the firms Ogilvy & Mather and Ayer Barker, he became a full-time writer.
Rushdie has been married four times. His first wife was Clarissa Luard, to whom he was married from 1976 to 1987 and with whom he has a son, Zafar Rushdie. His second wife was the American novelist Marianne Wiggins; they were married in 1988 and divorced in 1993. His third wife, from 1997 to 2004, was Elizabeth West; they have a son, Milan Rushdie. Since 2004, he has been married to the Indian actress and model Padma Lakshmi, the host of the American reality-television show Top Chef.
In 1999, Rushdie had an operation to correct a tendon condition that was making 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.
Career
Major literary work
His first novel, Grimus (1975), a part-science fiction tale, was generally ignored by the book-buying public and literary critics. His next novel, Midnight's Children (1981), however, catapulted him to literary fame. It also significantly shaped the course that Indian writing in English would follow over the next decade. This work won the 1981 Booker Prize and in 1993 was awarded the 'Booker of Bookers' as the best novel to have received the prize during its first 25 years. After the success of Midnight's Children, about the birth of the modern nation of India, Rushdie wrote Shame (1983), in which he depicts the political turmoil in Pakistan by 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 of these works are characterised by a style of magic realism and the immigrant outlook of which Rushdie is very conscious, as a member of the Indian diaspora. In the 1980s, Rushdie visited Nicaragua, the scene of Sandinista political experiments, and this experience was the basis for his next book, The Jaguar Smile (1987).
In his 2002 nonfiction collection Step Across the Line, he professes his admiration for the Italian writer Italo Calvino and the American writer Thomas Pynchon, amongst others. His early influences included James Joyce, Günter Grass, Jorge Luis Borges, Mikhail Bulgakov, and Lewis Carroll.
India and Pakistan were the themes of Midnight's Children and Shame, respectively, examples of postcolonial literature. In his later works, Rushdie turned towards the Western world with The Moor's Last Sigh (1995), exploring commercial and cultural links between India and the Iberian peninsula, and The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999), which presents an alternative history of modern rock music. Midnight's Children receives accolades for being Rushdie's best, most flowing and inspiring work, and many of Rushdie's post-1989 works have been critically acclaimed and commercially successful. His 2005 novel Shalimar the Clown received, in India, the prestigious Crossword Fiction Award, and, in Britain, was a finalist for the Whitbread Book Awards. It is shortlisted for the 2007 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
Other activities
Rushdie has mentored – though quietly – 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 has received many plaudits for his writings, including the European Union's Aristeion Prize for Literature, the Premio Grinzane Cavour (Italy), and the Writer of the Year Award in Germany. He is also a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres. Rushdie was the President of PEN American Center from 2004 to 2006.
He opposes 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 published by Penguin in November 2005. Avowedly secular, Rushdie is a self-described atheist. He is a distinguished supporter of the British Humanist Association.
On October 6, 2006, it was announced that Rushdie would be joining the Emory University faculty as Distinguished Writer in Residence for one month a year for the next five years.He is currently working on a book set in the Mughal Empire and Renaissance Italy. Though he enjoys writing, Salman Rushdie says that he would have become an artist if his writing career was not successful. Even from early childhood, he drew pictures and sculpted long before he took an interest in writing.
He was awarded a knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honours in June 2007. He remarked "I am thrilled and humbled to receive this great honour, and am very grateful that my work has been recognised in this way." The Iranian Foreign Ministry qualified the honoring of "a hated apostate" as Islamophobic.
The Satanic Verses and the fatwa
See The Satanic Verses for a timeline of the events.
The publication of The Satanic Verses in September 1988 caused immediate controversy in the Islamic world because of what was perceived as an irreverent depiction of the prophet Muhammad. The title refers to a Muslim tradition that is related in the book. According to it, Muhammad (Mahound in the book) added verses (sura) to the Qur'an accepting three goddesses that 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 Gibriel. The book was banned in many countries with large Muslim communities. His critics included peers, such as Roald Dahl who called him "a dangerous opportunist", Germaine Greer who called him "an Englishman with dark skin" and Hugh Trevor-Roper who said "I would not shed a tear if some British Muslims should waylay him in a dark street".
On 14 February 1989, a fatwa requiring Rushdie's execution was proclaimed on Radio Tehran by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of Iran at the time, calling the book "blasphemous against Islam." A bounty was offered for the death of Rushdie, who was thus forced to live under police protection for years to come. On 7 March 1989, the United Kingdom and Iran broke diplomatic relations over the Rushdie controversy.
The publication of the book and the fatwa sparked violence around the world, with bookstores being firebombed. Muslim communities in several nations held public rallies in which copies of the book were burned. Several people associated with translating or publishing the book were attacked, seriously injured, and even killed.
On 24 September 1998, as a precondition to the restoration of diplomatic relations with Britain, the Iranian government, then headed by moderate Mohammad Khatami, gave a public commitment that it would do nothing to harm Rushdie. But the hardliners in Iran have continued to reaffirm the death sentence. In early 2005, Khomeini's fatwa was reaffirmed by Iran's spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a message to Muslim pilgrims making the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Additionally, the Revolutionary Guards have declared that the death sentence on him is still valid. Iran has rejected requests to withdraw the fatwa on the basis that only the person who issued it may withdraw it.
Salman Rushdie reported that he still receives a "sort of Valentine's card" from Iran each year on February 14 letting him know the country has not forgotten the vow to kill him. He was also quoted saying, "It's reached the point where it's a piece of rhetoric rather than a real threat." Despite the threats on Rushdie, he has publicly 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.
Other controversies
NATO bombing of Yugoslavia
Rushdie supported the 1999 NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, leading Tariq Ali to label Rushdie and other 'warrior writers' as the belligerati.
October 2006 Jack Straw veil controversy
In 2006, Rushdie stated that he supported comments by the Leader of the House of Commons, Jack Straw, criticising the wearing of the niqab. Rushdie stated that his three sisters would never wear the veil, that it was a limitation on women. He said, "I think the battle against the veil has been a long and continuing battle against the limitation of women, so in that sense I'm completely on side."
Salman Rushdie in popular culture
- Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) features a cameo by Rushdie as himself; the appearance is particularly memorable as both Hugh Grant's and Renée Zellweger's characters ask him for directions to the lavatory.
- In The Rutles 2 (2005) Rushdie appears several times throughout the film as one of the celebrity commentators on the career and musical output of The Rutles.
- On May 12, 2006, Rushdie was a guest host on The Charlie Rose Show, where he interviewed filmmaker Deepa Mehta about her 2005 film, Water. He had previously hosted another segment featuring the writers David Grossman and Gioconda Belli.
- Rushdie and Bono co-wrote the song "The Ground Beneath Her Feet" – the lyrics coming from the novel of the same name; the song was later recorded by U2 for the soundtrack to the film The Million Dollar Hotel in 2000 (and also appearing as a bonus track on some editions of All That You Can't Leave Behind).
- Rushdie is a character in a 1990 film entitled International Gorillay (International Guerillas) produced in Pakistan. This film made headlines when the British Board of Film Classification refused to allow it a certificate, thus effectively banning the film outright. However a month later, following a letter by Salman Rushdie himself, the ban was lifted
- In an episode of Seinfeld, Kramer believes that he has seen Rushdie at a health club. When asked for his name, the man responds "Sal Bass," leading Kramer to believe that Rushdie has changed one fish for another. Jerry responds: "It's Salman not Salmon!"
- On August 2 2006 Rushdie appeared at "An Evening With Harry, Carrie, and Garp", a two-night event (Rushdie attended the second night) at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, put on by J. K. Rowling, Stephen King, and John Irving to raise money for Doctors Without Borders and the Haven Foundation. Each of the three authors read passages and answered questions and gave talks. Rushdie drew attention when he and his son, Milan, stood from the audience and asked Rowling directly whether Severus Snape, from the Harry Potter books, is fighting for the good or the bad side.
- On April 21 2007 Rushdie presented a literary reading of his latest work to the Harvard Humanist Chaplaincy 30th birthday in Boston. Asked later by Michel Virard since when he had been a Humanist, Rushdie answered that he was a Humanist for long time but did not know how to call it and that he discovered the word only recently.
- Appeared on the Colbert Report on May 09, 2007 discussing the decline in literary criticism in newspapers. The introduction to his segment included a parody of the security that used to surround Rushdie's life.
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)
- Shalimar the Clown (2005)
Awards
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 (twice)
- Writers' Guild of Great Britain Award for Children's Fiction
- Kurt Tucholsky Prize (Sweden)
- Prix Colette (Switzerland)
- State Prize for Literature (Austria)
- Author of the Year (British Book Awards)
- Author of the Year (Germany)
- Mantua Prize (Italy)
- Premio Grinzane Cavour (Italy)
- Hutch Crossword Fiction Prize (India)
- India Abroad Lifetime Achievement Award (USA)
- Outstanding Lifetime Achievement in Cultural Humanism (Harvard University)
- Aristeion Prize (European Union)
See also
- A critique of The Satanic Verses, by Ata'ollah Mohajerani, former Iranian Minister of Culture
- Norwegian author Axel Jensen and his collection of essays, "God Does Not Read Novels: A Voyage in the World of Salman Rushdie"(1994), in defence of free speech
- Censorship in South Asia
- International PEN
- MANIFESTO: Together facing the new totalitarianism-- an open letter he co-signed regarding the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
- Blitcon, British literary conservatives
References
- http://www.honours.gov.uk/upload/assets/www.honours.gov.uk/queens_birthday_list2007.pdf
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6760927.stm
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6763119.stm
- "Rushdie: New book out from under shadow of fatwa", CNN, April 15, 1999. Retrieved on April 21, 2007.
- "Previous winners - 1981". The Booker Prize Foundation. 2007. Retrieved 2007-04-05.
- "The 2007 Shortlist". Dublin City Public Libraries/International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. 2007. Retrieved 2007-04-05.
- Rushdie's postcolonial influence
- "Salman Rushdie to Teach and Place His Archive at Emory University". Emory University Office of Media Relations. Retrieved 2006-12-06.
- "June 15th 2007 Rushdie knighted in honours list". BBC News. Retrieved 2007-06-16.
- "British knighthood for Rushdie, clear sign of Islamophobia". Iranian Foreign Ministry / IRNA. Retrieved 2007-06-17.
- http://weeklywire.com/ww/02-08-99/tw_book1.html
- See Hitoshi Igarashi, Ettore Capriolo, William Nygaard
- "26 December 1990: Iranian leader upholds Rushdie fatwa". BBC News: On This Day. Retrieved 2006-10-10.
- Rubin, Michael (1 September 2006). "Can Iran Be Trusted?". The Middle East Forum: Promoting American Interests. Retrieved 2006-10-10.
{{cite web}}
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(help) - ^ Webster, Philip, Ben Hoyle and Ramita Navai (January 20 2005). "Ayatollah revives the death fatwa on Salman Rushdie". The Times Online. Retrieved 2006-10-10.
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(help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - "Iran adamant over Rushdie fatwa". BBC News. 12 February 2005. Retrieved 2006-10-10.
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(help) - "Rushdie's term". Retrieved 2007-02-15.
- "Cronenberg meets Rushdie".
- Michael Mandel, How America Gets Away With Murder, Pluto Press, 2004, p60
- Wagner, Thomas (10 October 2006). "Blair, Rushdie support former British foreign secretary who ignited veil debate". SignOnSanDiego.com. Retrieved 2006-10-10.
{{cite web}}
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(help) - ""An Evening with Harry, Carrie and Garp: Readings and questions #2, August 2, 2006"". Accio Quote!. 2006. Retrieved 2007-04-11.
External links
- Contemporary writers: Salman Rushdie. British Council: Arts. Retrieved December 17, 2006.
- The Rushdie Experiment conducted in Tehran, Iran, in October/November 2006, to see if he has outlasted public hatred of him
- Long interview with Rushdie in which he provides context for the fatwa and reflects on the rise of Islamic fundamentalism
- Interview with Rushdie for Princeton Report on Knowledge about storytelling, freedom of expression and the 2004 US presidential election.
- Rushdie to teach at Emory
- New York Times special feature on Rushdie, 1999
- The Rushdie death threat affair
- Rushdie timeline
- Summaries of all his novels and links to interviews with Rushdie
- A critique of Salman Rushdie (2006) in Al-Ahram by Hamid Dabashi
- The Irshad Manji interview with Salman Rushdie
- February 14, 2006 Iran says Rushdie fatwa still stands
- Profile: Salman Rushdie
- Salman Rushdie interviewed by Ginny Dougary (2005)
- Salman Rushdie 'Bookweb' on literary website The Ledge, with suggestions for further reading.
- Salman Rushdie's speech at the Center for Inquiry, presented on the Point of Inquiry Podcast
- Rushdie: Haunted by his unholy ghosts by Arshad Ahmadi (book complete text)
Interviews
- Video interview with Stephen Colbert May 9 2007
- Video interview and clips of Bill Moyers conversation with Rushdie in 2006 on PBS
- British novelists
- Booker Prize winners
- British Book Awards
- Postmodern literature
- British humanists
- Atheist thinkers and activists
- British atheists
- Fatwas
- Copywriters
- Magic realism writers
- Indian expatriates
- Islam-related controversies
- Postcolonial literature
- Former Muslims
- People from Mumbai
- Kashmiri people
- British Asians
- Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
- Old Rugbeians
- 1947 births
- Living people
- Knights Bachelor