1947–, British novelist, b. Bombay. His first novels, including Midnight's Children (1981; adapted for the stage by Rushdie, 2003) and Shame (1983), are examples of magic realism; elements of this technique can also be found in his later fiction. Parts of his allegorical novel The Satanic Verses (1988) were deemed sacrilegious and enraged many Muslims, including the Ayatollah Khomeini, who in 1989 issued a fatwa sentencing Rushdie to death. Violence occurred in some cities where the book was sold, and Rushdie went into hiding. From his seclusion he wrote Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990), a novelistic allegory against censorship; East, West (1995), a book of short stories; and The Moor's Last Sigh (1995), a novel that examines India's recent history through the life of a Jewish-Christian family. The fatwa was lifted in 1998. Rushdie's next novel, The Ground beneath Her Feet (1999), mingles myth and reality in a surreal world of rock-and-roll celebrity. He has also written the novel Fury (2001) and numerous essays, many of them included in Step across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992–2002 (2002).

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright© 2004, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V. All rights reserved.

-41314-