An introduction to the works of Salman Rushdie
Our culture correspondent recommends four of the novelist’s books—and one about how the fatwa against him changed the world
AYATOLLAH RUHOLLAH KHOMEINI had probably never heard of Salman Rushdie when the bespectacled, slightly balding, Indian-born British author’s fourth novel, “The Satanic Verses”, came out in 1988. Yet within five months, Iran’s supreme leader had made the writer the world’s most famous literary apostate, describing the book as “blasphemous against Islam” and issuing a fatwa on national radio calling for the execution of the author and all those involved in the book’s publication. On February 14th 1989, two hours after the edict was announced, Sir Salman emerged from a memorial service in London for Bruce Chatwin, his friend and fellow author, stepped into a car and sped off into a different life. Today, as the 75-year-old writer lies in hospital, after being attacked on stage in upstate New York by a knife-wielding assailant who was not even born when the fatwa was issued, it is worth recalling why Sir Salman—who was knighted in 2007—is one of the great novelists of our time: funny, brave and endlessly inventive.
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