Salman Rushdie (Contemporary World Writers) ~ Andrew Teverson (39 of 2025)

 

Thanks to CBC and the topic of discussion being Salman Rushdie, got a copy of this book. 

The book Salman Rushdie (Contemporary World Writers) by Andrew Teverson offers a comprehensive and insightful critical study of Salman Rushdie's literary work and public persona 

Teverson explores the intellectual, biographical, literary, and cultural contexts that shape Rushdie’s fiction. The book is designed to help readers navigate the often complex and polarising debates surrounding Rushdie’s life and work. It positions Rushdie as:

• A politicised fiction writer whose narratives engage deeply with global politics.
• A controversialist, unafraid to provoke and challenge dominant ideologies.
• A novelist of extraordinary imaginative range, blending myth, history, and fantasy.
• A fearless commentator on contemporary issues, especially those concerning identity, migration, and postcolonialism.

The book includes detailed critical readings of all Rushdie’s novels up to Shalimar the Clown, including:

• Grimus
• Midnight’s Children
• The Satanic Verses
• The Moor’s Last Sigh
• The Ground Beneath Her Feet

Each chapter situates the novels within broader literary and political frameworks, offering interpretations that are both accessible and academically rigorous. This book is a guide particularly valuable for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of Rushdie’s narrative strategies and ideological engagements.

Teverson offers a lucid critical introduction to Rushdie that blends context (political, intellectual, linguistic, biographical) with close readings of the novels from Grimus to Shalimar the Clown. The guiding premise is that Rushdie is a pre‑eminent writer of politicised fiction whose work must be read at the intersection of postcolonial history, postmodern form, and global cultural debate. 

How the book is structured (the argument in chapters)

Teverson divides the study into two parts—

• Contexts & Intertexts and 
• Novels & Criticism

—then closes with a critical overview and afterword on Shalimar the Clown. Key chapter are:

Part 1 on Contexts and intertexts covers:

Political & intellectual contexts; 2) 

Writing in English; 3) 

Intertextuality, influence & the postmodern; 4) 

Biographical contexts; 5)

then novel-focused chapters on:

6) From science fiction to history: Grimus and Midnight’s Children

7) Tragedy in Shame

8) Satire in The Satanic Verses

9) “Pessoptimistic” fictions: Haroun and the Sea of Stories and The Moor’s Last Sigh

10) The pop novel in the age of globalisation: The Ground Beneath Her Feet and Fury

11) Critical overview & conclusion 

 Afterword: Shalimar the Clown. 

The big ideas & recurring themes

1) Politicised fiction, history, and the postcolonial

Rushdie’s novels are framed as interventions in public debate, dramatizing the legacies of empire, partition, migration, and religious-national politics. Teverson shows how the fiction negotiates postcolonial identity while exploiting postmodern narrative play. 

2) Writing in (and about) English

A chapter on “Writing in English” argues that Rushdie treats English as a de‑imperialized, hybrid medium, absorbing Indian vernaculars, idioms, and myth. The choice of language becomes a political and aesthetic act—central to how “India” (and later, the diaspora) are narrated to global readerships. 

3) Intertextuality & postmodern technique

Teverson emphasizes Rushdie’s dense intertextual web—from the Qur’anic and folkloric to Bollywood, pop, and the Western canon—and reads him through postmodern strategies (pastiche, metafiction, magical realism) used to question “official” histories and fixed identities. 

4) Biography as context, not key

The biographical contexts chapter situates Rushdie’s life within Bombay/London/New York cultural circuits and political flashpoints (including the “Rushdie Affair”), yet warns against reducing the fiction to life events; instead it traces how life, media reception, and authorship circulate within the novels’ public meanings. 

5) Novel‑by‑novel theses (Teverson’s core readings)

Grimus → Midnight’s Children: a move “from science fiction to history”—from apprenticeship to a masterwork where narrative excess, allegory, and unreliable memory become tools for retelling national history. 

Shame: read as tragedy, foregrounding gendered violence and authoritarianism in a Pakistan‑inflected allegory; Teverson stresses how tragic form sharpens the political critique. 

The Satanic Verses: treated primarily as satire—on religious dogma, media spectacle, and migrant transformation—where metamorphosis dramatizes identity as performance and invites fierce public disagreement. 

Haroun & The Moor’s Last Sigh: labeled “pessoptimistic”—mixing hope and disenchantment; children’s fable and family saga probe freedom of speech, storytelling ethics, and cultural memory. 

The Ground Beneath Her Feet & Fury: the “pop novel in the age of globalisation”—celebrity culture, music, branding, and Manhattan angst; Teverson argues these books anatomize late‑capitalist cosmopolitanism and the commodification of identity. 

Afterword: Shalimar the Clown: extends the arc to Kashmir, terror, and revenge, showing Rushdie’s shift toward darker political tragedy in the 2000s. 

6) Cosmopolitanism, location, and the political writer (the “critical overview” debate)

In the concluding chapter, Teverson stages a debate with Timothy Brennan’s claim that Rushdie belongs to a class of “Third World cosmopolitans”—migrant intellectuals marketed as authentic voices of the “Third World,” a location that (for Brennan) compromises their political authority. Teverson maps counter‑arguments and asks to what extent Rushdie’s cosmopolitan positioning limits—or enables—his political critique. [academic.oup.com]

What you’ll take away (the book’s overall argument)

Form is political in Rushdie: narrative experimentation (hybridity, satire, magical realism) is not decorative but the means by which history and identity are contested. 

Rushdie’s work is best read within entangled contexts—postcolonial history, language politics, intertextual canons, and public controversies—rather than through single‑issue lenses. 

Across the oeuvre, there’s a movement of tones and genres—from tragic allegory to carnivalesque satire to pop‑global fables—tracking the world’s shift from post‑imperial nation‑building to globalised culture and neoliberal urbanity. 

The final critical question is not whether Rushdie is “for” or “against” politics, but how his cosmopolitan authorship mediates power, voice, and representation in a global literary marketplace. -----------

Not from book but otherwise:

Marriages and Romantic Life

Salman Rushdie has been married five times, with his first four marriages ending in divorce:

Clarissa Luard (1976–1987)

A literature officer at the Arts Council of England.

They had one son, Zafar Rushdie, born in 1979.

Though divorced, they remained close until her death in 1999.

Marianne Wiggins (1988–1993)

An American novelist.

Their marriage coincided with the publication of The Satanic Verses and the issuing of the fatwa.

Wiggins went into hiding with Rushdie, but the stress led to their separation.

Elizabeth West (1997–2004)

A British editor.

They had one son, Milan Rushdie, born in 1997.

Padma Lakshmi (2004–2007)

An Indian-American actress, model, and TV host.

Their marriage was highly publicised but ended in divorce after three years.

Rachel Eliza Griffiths (Married in 2021)

An American poet, novelist, photographer, and visual artist.

Born in 1978, she is known for her work Seeing the Body (2020), which blends poetry and photography.

Their relationship is described as a meeting of minds and muses, with Griffiths complementing Rushdie’s literary genius.

Rushdie has expressed deep affection for both sons and values his role as a father.

Salman Rushdie was in a romantic relationship with fellow Booker Prize-winning author Kiran Desai. Their relationship became public in the late 2000s and was widely covered in literary and media circles.

While the two never married, they were known to have shared a close and intellectually rich partnership. Desai, who is the daughter of acclaimed writer Anita Desai, has spoken admiringly of Rushdie’s influence on her work, and they were often seen together at literary events. Rushdie, in turn, praised Desai’s writing, including her Booker-winning novel The Inheritance of Loss.

Their relationship eventually ended, but both have continued to maintain prominent literary careers. Desai was recently in the spotlight again for her long-awaited novel The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, which has been longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize.

Salman Rushdie has written and published over 25 books, spanning novels, short stories, essays, memoirs, and plays. Here's a breakdown of his major works by category, based on the most up-to-date bibliographic sources .

 Novels

Grimus (1975)

Midnight’s Children (1981)

Shame (1983)

The Satanic Verses (1988)

The Moor’s Last Sigh (1995)

The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999)

Fury (2001)

Shalimar the Clown (2005)

The Enchantress of Florence (2008)

Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights (2015)

The Golden House (2017)

Quichotte (2019)

Victory City (2023)

Short Stories / Novellas

The Prophet’s Hair (1981)

The Firebird’s Nest (1997)

Home (2017)

Children’s Books

Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990)

Luka and the Fire of Life (2010)

Non-Fiction

The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey (1987)

Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981–1991 (1991)

Step Across This Line: Collected Non-fiction 1992–2002 (2002)

Joseph Anton: A Memoir (2012)

Languages of Truth: Essays 2003–2020 (2021)

Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder (2024)

Plays

Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (2009)

Salman Rushdie was born on 19 June 1947 in Bombay, which is now known as Mumbai, India. He was born into a Kashmiri Muslim family, the son of Anis Ahmed Rushdie, a Cambridge-educated lawyer-turned-businessman, and Negin Bhatt, a teacher

Salman Rushdie has lived in several countries over the course of his life, reflecting both his personal journey and the global themes of his writing:

India (1947–1964)

Born on 19 June 1947 in Bombay (now Mumbai), British India, into a Kashmiri Muslim family.

He attended the Cathedral and John Connon School in South Bombay 1.

🇬🇧 United Kingdom (1964–2000)

Moved to England in 1964 to attend Rugby School in Warwickshire.

Later studied at King’s College, University of Cambridge, where he earned a degree in history.

Lived in London for many years, where he began his writing career.

After the publication of The Satanic Verses in 1988 and the subsequent fatwa, he spent nearly a decade in hiding under British government protection 1.

🇺🇸 United States (2000–Present)

Since 2000, Rushdie has lived primarily in the United States.

He has held academic positions at Emory University and New York University, where he was named Distinguished Writer in Residence at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute in 2015.

He became a U.S. citizen in 2016 .

Salman Rushdie has been at the centre of several major controversies, most notably surrounding his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses.

Publication and Backlash: The Satanic Verses was published in 1988 and quickly drew criticism from many in the Muslim world for its perceived blasphemous references to Islam and the Prophet Muhammad 1.

Fatwa Issued: In 1989, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death. This led to:

Violent protests and riots in several countries.

Bans on the book in multiple nations.

Attacks on translators and publishers, including the murder of Japanese translator Hitoshi Igarashi and the stabbing of Italian translator Ettore Capriolo 1.

Rushdie in Hiding: He lived under British police protection for nearly a decade, moving between safe houses and using aliases.

Ongoing Threats: Although Iran’s government distanced itself from the fatwa in 1998, it was never officially revoked. In 2019, Iran’s Supreme Leader reaffirmed the fatwa as “solid and irrevocable” 1.

2022 Attack: Rushdie was stabbed multiple times during a public lecture in New York. He survived but sustained serious injuries, including the loss of sight in one eye 2.

Other Literary and Political Controversies

Midnight’s Children (1981): Angered Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who sued Rushdie for defamation. The case was settled out of court, and a line was removed from later editions.

Shame (1983): A political allegory that criticised Pakistan’s military and political elite, particularly Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Zia-ul-Haq. It was banned in Pakistan.

Political Commentary: Rushdie has been outspoken on issues such as religious extremism, censorship, and freedom of speech. His critiques of both Western and Islamic governments have drawn both praise and condemnation 3.

No Criminal Allegations or Legal Charges

There are no known criminal allegations or legal charges against Salman Rushdie. The controversies surrounding him are primarily ideological, religious, and political, not legal or personal in nature.

On 12 August 2022, Salman Rushdie was brutally attacked while preparing to speak at the Chautauqua Institution in New York. The assailant, Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old from New Jersey, rushed the stage and stabbed Rushdie multiple times, causing life-threatening injuries including the loss of his right eye and partial use of his left hand 

Hadi Matar was reportedly influenced by Islamic extremism and the 1989 fatwa issued by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini, which called for Rushdie’s death following the publication of The Satanic Verses

Matar pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree attempted murder and assault, but was ultimately convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison in May 2025 

Rushdie’s 2024 memoir, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, is a deeply personal and reflective account of the attack and its aftermath:

He recounts the 27-second assault and the surreal experience of lying in a pool of his own blood, believing he was dying.

The book explores his physical and emotional recovery, including the vital role played by his wife, Eliza Griffiths, whom he calls the “heroine” of his story.

Rushdie initially resisted writing about the incident but later saw the memoir as a way of “taking the power back” and reclaiming his narrative.

He describes Knife as both a literal and metaphorical weapon:

“It’s about a knife, but it also kind of is a knife... I don’t have any guns or knives, so this is the tool I use. And I thought I would use it to fight back.”

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Philip Abraham Sir:

"Salman Rushdie,  about his creativity and playfulness with words, examples of which are 

"Salman Rushdie playfully reimagined Shakespearean titles in the style of Robert Ludlum, a popular thriller writer. He transformed Hamlet into The Elsinore Vacillation, Macbeth into The Dunsinane Reforestation, The Merchant of Venice into The Rialto Sanction, and Othello into The Kerchief Implication. These titles were noted for their Ludlum-esque formula of a definite article followed by a proper name and an abstract noun, suggesting a conspiracy or intrigue. 

Here's a more detailed breakdown: 

The Challenge:

The game involved taking classic Shakespeare plays and giving them Ludlum-style titles.

Rushdie's Responses:

Hamlet: The Elsinore Vacillation

Macbeth: The Dunsinane Reforestation

The Merchant of Venice: The Rialto Sanction

Othello: The Kerchief Implication

Ludlum's Style:

Ludlum's titles often feature a definite article ("The," "A"), a proper noun (place name, character name), and an abstract noun suggesting a plot or scheme.

Beyond the Game:

Rushdie's exercise demonstrates his familiarity with both Shakespeare and the thriller genre, highlighting his ability to play with language and literary styles.

 "Rushdie and Hitchens also played a game whereby you change one word of a famous book – rendering it more pedestrian than epic.  The examples they reeled off:

–         A Farewell to Weapons

–         Laugtherhouse Five

–         Toby Dick

–         Blueberry Finn

And so on 🙂

 He also spoke about two friends Martin Amis and Christopher Hitchens.

Harish said:

"I remembered a particular article about the downfall of Indian-English writing brought by mediocre writers like Shobha De and Rushdie. But then a brilliant defense of the writer by Kundera in a book of his made me pick up Midnight's Children, which was my second favourite novel at that time. 

While migration is the most important of his topics, I talked about two other important and recurring themes in Rushdie's work- the importance of the narrator and the power of stories. In most of his fiction, it is important to seek whose narrating voice is speaking to us to understand the narrative. For example in Victory City, the hidden narrator may be one or more scholars who re-tell the old manuscript in  today's voice and sensibilities.

Also while Rushdie extensively uses recorded and documented narratives like history, religious texts, etc., he superimposes fictional narratives in them to challenge and mock their linearity. He questions the causality assigned to history by authoritative historians and demonstrates how a subjective, fragmented and non-linear history is nearer to reality. While we believe that an aural discourse could corrupt the narratives, he points out the reason why any narrative that's set in stone and not ready to modify itself with time has more chances to get corrupted."

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Victory City by Rushdie has been my favourite book in the last year...the epic style was superb and the setting in Vijayanagar..

For me it has always been Moors Lash Sigh