Rushdie, (Ahmed) Salman (1947– )

Indian-born British writer. He was born in India of a Muslim family. His book Midnight's Children (1981) deals with India from the date of independence and won the Booker Prize. His novel The Satanic Verses (1988) (the title refers to verses deleted from the Koran) offended many Muslims with alleged blasphemy. In 1989 the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran placed a religious fatwa on Rushdie, calling for him and his publishers to be killed.

Rushdie was born in Bombay (now Mumbai) and later lived in Pakistan before moving to the UK. His earlier novels in the magic-realist style include Shame (1983), set in an imaginary parallel of Pakistan. The furore caused by the publication of The Satanic Verses led to the withdrawal of British diplomats from Iran. In India and elsewhere, people were killed in demonstrations against the book, and Rushdie was forced to go into hiding.

Other works include Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990; for children), Imaginary Homelands (1991; essays and criticism), East and West (1994; short stories), and further novels, The Moor's Last Sigh (1995), The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999), and Fury (2001).

In 1998 the Iranian government pledged formally to dissociate itself from the fatwa placed on Rushdie by the late Ayatollah Khomeini; the fatwa, however, continued to stand. The agreement, which had been under secret negotiation between the two governments since early 1989, ended nearly ten years of diplomatic chill between Britain and Iran. He was knighted in 2007.