Crossing Paths with Salman Rushdie: Renowned Author to Address IABC's International Conference in Los Angeles

Beginning of article

To cross a frontier is to be transformed.... The frontier is a wake-up call. At the frontier, we can't avoid the truth; the comforting layers of the quotidian, which insulate us against the world's harsher realities, are stripped away and, wide-eyed in the harsh fluorescent light of the frontier's windowless halls, we see things as they are."

--Excerpt from "Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002"

Salman Rushdie ushered in a new genre of 20th century literature with his clever mingling of magic realism and historical events to create the classic modern epic. Rushdie's ability to evoke an age by transforming historical facts into an imaginative, multicultural tapestry has been likened to F. Scott Fitzgerald's swirling pictorials of the 1920s.

Rushdie's novels capture the past in such a way that the reader unwittingly steps into history. "To understand just one life, you have to swallow the world," Rushdie explains. It's this philosophy that gives his work enduring value.

As keynote speaker at IABC's international conference, 6-9 June in Los Angeles, Rushdie will offer a rare view into his life and an invitation to communicators to "step across this line" by exploring borders and crossing frontiers.

Born in Mumbai (Bombay), India, and educated in Britain at Rugby School and the University of Cambridge, Rushdie started his career in communication. He was working as an …