WRITER

Salman Rushdie

1947 - Today

Salman Rushdie

Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations, typically set on the Indian subcontinent. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Salman Rushdie has received more than 17,964,018 page views. His biography is available in 97 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 91 in 2019). Salman Rushdie is the 266th most popular writer (up from 454th in 2019), the 28th most popular biography from India (up from 51st in 2019) and the 6th most popular Indian Writer.

Salman Rushdie is most famous for his controversial novel The Satanic Verses. The book was condemned by the Ayatollah Khomeini, and Rushdie was forced into hiding.

Memorability Metrics

18M
Page Views (PV)
70.90
Historical Popularity Index (HPI)
97
Languages Editions (L)
6.02
Effective Languages (L*)
5.76
Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

Shame

1983

Satanic Verses

Fiction / General, Fiction / Literary

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "[A] torrent of endlessly inventive prose, by turns comic and enraged, embracing life in all its contradictions. In this spectacular novel, verbal pyrotechnics barely outshine its psychological truths."--Newsday Winner of the Whitbread Prize One of the most controversial and acclaimed novels ever written, The Satanic Verses is Salman Rushdie's best-known and most galvanizing book. Set in a modern world filled with both mayhem and miracles, the story begins with a bang: the terrorist bombing of a London-bound jet in midflight. Two Indian actors of opposing sensibilities fall to earth, transformed into living symbols of what is angelic and evil. This is just the initial act in a magnificent odyssey that seamlessly merges the actual with the imagined. A book whose importance is eclipsed only by its quality, The Satanic Verses is a key work of our times. Praise for The Satanic Verses "Rushdie is a storyteller of prodigious powers, able to conjure up whole geographies, causalities, climates, creatures, customs, out of thin air."--The New York Times Book Review "Exhilarating, populous, loquacious, sometimes hilarious, extraordinary . . . a roller-coaster ride over a vast landscape of the imagination."--The Guardian (London) "A novel of metamorphoses, hauntings, memories, hallucinations, revelations, advertising jingles, and jokes. Rushdie has the power of description, and we succumb."--The Times (London)

19883 / 5

Grimus

1975

Fury

2001

Fury

Fiction, Middle-aged men, College teachers

'Kaleidoscopische roman die een actueel portret schetst van een leven aan het begin van het derde millennium, van een wereldstad in een tijd van schijnbaar eindeloze welvaart, die paradoxaal ook een tijd is van dorheid in het dagelijkse bestaan van veel mensen.'

2001

The Satanic Verses

General & Literary Fiction, East Indians, Didactic fiction

The Satanic Verses is Salman Rushdie's fourth novel, first published September 26, 1988 and inspired in part by the life of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. As with his previous books, Rushdie used magical realism and relied on contemporary events and people to create his characters. The title refers to the satanic verses, a group of Quranic verses that refer to three pagan Meccan goddesses: Allāt, Uzza, and Manāt. The part of the story that deals with the "satanic verses" was based on accounts from the historians al-Waqidi and al-Tabari. In the United Kingdom, The Satanic Verses received positive reviews, was a 1988 Booker Prize finalist (losing to Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda) and won the 1988 Whitbread Award for novel of the year.

1988

The Moor's Last Sigh

Fiction, Family, Ficción

1995

Haroun and the Sea of Stories

Hindi Short stories, Short stories, Adventure

Set in an exotic Eastern landscape peopled by magicians and fantastic talking animals, this classic children's novel inhabits the same imaginative space as *The Lord of the Rings*, *The Alchemist*, and *The Wizard of Oz*. In this captivating work of fantasy, Haroun sets out on an adventure to restore the poisoned source of the sea of stories. On the way, he encounters many foes, all intent on draining the sea of all its storytelling powers.

1990

Shalimar the Clown

Psychological fiction, Assassination, Fiction

De dood van een voormalige Amerikaanse ambassadeur in India lijkt op een politieke moord, maar blijkt persoonlijke wortels te hebben in de geschiedenis van het decennialang tussen India en Pakistan ingeklemde Kashmir.

1998

Midnight's Children

literary fiction, telepathy, epic literature

Midnight's Children is a 1981 novel by author Salman Rushdie. It portrays India's transition from British colonial rule to independence and the partition of India. It is considered an example of postcolonial, postmodern, and magical realist literature. The story is told by its chief protagonist, Saleem Sinai, and is set in the context of actual historical events. The style of preserving history with fictional accounts is self-reflexive. Midnight's Children won both the Booker Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1981. It was awarded the "Booker of Bookers" Prize and the best all-time prize winners in 1993 and 2008 to celebrate the Booker Prize 25th and 40th anniversary.In 2003, the novel was listed on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's "best-loved novels". It was also added to the list of Great Books of the 20th Century, published by Penguin Books. ---------- Contains: [Midnight's Children (2/2)](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL24710315W)

1981

Fury

Fiction, Middle-aged men, College teachers

2001

Midnight's Children

literary fiction, telepathy, epic literature

1981

Haroun and the Sea of Stories

Hindi Short stories, Short stories, Adventure

1990

The Satanic Verses

General & Literary Fiction, East Indians, Didactic fiction

1988

Shalimar the Clown

Psychological fiction, Assassination, Fiction

1998

The Moor's Last Sigh

Fiction, Family, Ficción

"The Moor evokes his family's often grotesque but compulsively moving fortunes and the lost world of possibilities embodied by India in this century. His is a tale of premature deaths and family rifts, of thwarted loves and mad passions, of secrecy and greed, of power and money, and of the even more morally dubious seductions and mysteries of art."--BOOK JACKET.

1995