Modern/Postmodern English Literature

Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie(1947) , a British novelist of Indian descent, was born in Bombay, India.
He was educated at the University of Cambridge. His experiences at Cambridge were "quite wonderful", and he made many friends in university. Academically, he pursued a history major. He considered himself lucky to read history rather than English because it allowed him to study literary books of his own choice.
His early publications include the novels: Grimus(1974), Midnight Children(1981), and Shame(1983). Shame is an allegorical, mythological text about Pakistan.
Rushdie seemed to be settled into the role of an esoteric fiction writer. He addressed postcolonial themes for a primarily intellectual audience.

Rushdie gained international recognition with Midnight's Children (1981), a contemporary tale that blends heroic fact and fiction.

In 1995, Rushdie’s collection of nine short stories “East, West” appeared.

The book is divided into three parts: East, West, and East, West: three stories set in the East, three in the West, and in the East, West part, the last three stories are about immigrants from the east living in the west.

The first section East could have been written by the masterful Indian writer R.K. Narayan.

The first story “Good Advice is Rarer Than Rubies” is about a young Muslim woman seeking an immigrant visa to England.

“The Free Radio” is the second story about a young rickshaw driver who believes he will receive a free radio from the Government. When he discovers that reward scheme had already ended, he pretends he has received a radio.

“The Prophet’s Hair” is the third story of this section that talks about a Kashmiri family.
All of that changed with the publication of The Satanic Verses (1988), the book that ignited a global political and religious furor and put the death contract on Rushdie’s head.
The novel's representation of the prophet Muhammad, lightly disguised as the character "Mahound" (a name traditionally assigned to satanic figures), was experienced by many Muslim communities as a shot through the heart, and more importantly, as a vicious act of blasphemy. Iran's leaders were especially offended and soon issued a fatwa, or death sentence, that sent Rushdie into protective hiding for the next eight years.