Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie is a British-Indian novelist and essayist. Ahmad Salman Rushdie was born on 19th June 1947 under the zodiac sign of Cancer in Mumbai, British India. He was from a family of Kashmiri ancestry. His father was a Cambridge University graduated lawyer and businessman, named Anis Ahmad Rushdie and his mother was a teacher named Negin Bhatt. His father got rusticated from Civil Services after a problem in his date of birth in his certificates. He did his schooling from Cathedral John and Conon, Mumbai, and graduated from Kings College, University of Cambridge.

His first novel, Grimus which was published in 1975 was ignored by many people. His next novel which came in 1981 was Midnight’s Children which is based on India’s transformation from British India to Independent India and the book brought him the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1981 and Bookers Prize as well. His novel was honored with the title of Bookers of Bookers Award and got entry into the great books of the 20th century. He wrote Shame, published in 1983, which was about the politics in Pakistan and he received France’s Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger (Best Foreign Book) for it.

He wrote Jaguar Smile in 1987. He wrote The Satanic Verses which brought him under controversy and a terrorist group made an attempt to kill him by planting a bomb in a hotel in Central London but the explosion took place before the planned time. A Pakistani film called International Gorrillay depicted him as a villain who is killed at the end. Al-Qaeda also mentioned his name on their hit list. On 16th June 2007 he got knighted for the Queen’s Birthday Honours.

He has been married four times – first to Clarissa Luard from 1976 to 1987 and had a son with her. In 1988 he married Marianne Wiggins and divorced her in 1993. He then married Elizabeth West in 1997 and divorced her in 2004. He married Indian-American Padma Lakshmi, an actress and host in 2004 and divorced her in 2007. He has two sons.

Other than writing he also works as a mentor and helps aspiring writers with a few techniques and concepts and is a great speaker as well. His other books include Fury and Two years, Eight months and twenty-eight days. He wrote books for children that include Haroun and Sea of Stories and Luka and the Fire of Life. He wrote a few essays as well. He got awards for his works, some of which are Whitbread Novel Award twice, PEN Pinter Prize (UK), Premio Grenzane Cavour (Germany), Golden Pen Award, Author of the year (Germany), Arts Council Writers Award, and Aristeon Prize (European Union).