Source: The Guardian
For ages, English literature has given us many fascinating novels, Stories, poetries, and many more. We have a plethora of poets, novelists, writers, and authors who have made significant contributions in this field and have given an amazing and wonderful insight into their world of imagination, and reality and introduced us to the power of writing.
Today we are going to talk about one of the most eminent novelists of literature, Salman Rushdie.
Early Life Of Salman Rushdie
Salman Rushdie is an Indian-born, British-American novelist. Rushdie was born on 19 June 1947. Ahmed Salman Rushdie was born in Bombay ( present-day Mumbai) to a Kashmiri Muslim family during British. His father Anis Ahmed Rushdie was an educated lawyer, who later turned into a businessman in Cambridge. His mother, Negin Bhatt was a teacher by profession.
Rushdie's Father was in Indian Civil Services but was later dismissed from the service after it was found that he had made certain changes in his birthdate to look younger. Rushdie had three sisters. Salman Rushdie wrote a memoir in 2012 about his father who adopted the title 'Rushdie' in honor of Ibn Rushd ( Averroes)
Sir Rushdie completed his schooling at Cathedral and John Connon in Fort South Bombay and completed his graduation from King's College in Cambridge with a Bachelor of Arts in History.
Beginning Of New Era Of Literary and Exotic Literature
Rushdie's initial stages of his career began working as a copywriter for the advertising agency Ogilvy and Mather and came up with a very interesting line "irresistible" for Aero(chocolate) and "naughty but nice" for cream cakes, and for the agency Ayer Barker, and "That will do nicely for American Express.
He also collaborated with a very famous musician Ronnie Bond and wrote a song that became famous. The name was "The Best Dreams" and was sung by George Chandler. Also, Rushdie wrote the book "Midnight's Children" before becoming a full-time writer while working in Ogilvy.
Timeline of Sir Rushdie's Works
Salman Rushdie when became a full-time writer wrote a series of novels as follows:-
His first work was "Grimud '' a sci-fi novel that was ignored by public and literary critics.
His other novel "Midnight's Children" won the bookers prize in 1981 and in 1993 and 2003 he was awarded best of the best-selling novels of time between his 25 to 40 years of life.
In 1983, Rushdie wrote "shame" a novel depicting Pakistan's political turmoil during Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's regime. His book won France's Best Book Award. This book showed that Rushdie always tends to give a touch of magic realism, that is blurring the line of imagination and reality in his books, and was a very prominent member of the Kashmir Diaspora.
After this Salman Rushdie wrote a non-fiction book in 1987 called "The Jaguar Smile".
His most controversial work was "The Satanic Verses" in 1988 followed by Haroun and the Sea of Stories in 1990. It is about the dangers of storing telling and defense over stories of silence.
Rushdie wrote the novel "Shalimar the crown" about the love and betrayal hailing between Los Angeles and Kashmir.
In 2002 he wrote a collection "Step Across This Line", where he shows his admiration for the Italian writer Italo Calvino and the American writer Thomas Pynchon.
In 2008 Rushdie wrote his most challenging work, "The Enchantress Of Florence" which was about a visit of a European to Akbar's court.
In 2012, Rushdie became one of the first major novelists to embrace booking tracks where ebooks would be available along with their soundtrack. He published his story "In the South" on that platform
In 2015 Rushdie published the novel "Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights", a shift back to his old style of magic realism.
In 2017, he published "The Golden House" a satirical novel set in Contemporary America.
In 2021, his collection, Languages Of Truth consisting of short essays, was published between 2003 to 2021.
The Controversy Of Satanic Verses
The satanic verses were very controversial because it was ought to be believed that something derogatory was written about the Prophet Muhammad. According to the book, Mohammad himself accepted three Arabian goddesses who were worshipped as divine beings in Mecca. Later, he himself revoked the verses and said that the devil made him do so, that is to utter these verses(satanic) to appease the Meccans.
After this, his book was banned in 13 Islamic nations. The publishment of Satanic verses made Rushdie a target of death threats and assassination. A Fatwa calling for his death was issued by Rohallah Khomeini, leader of Iran. This was followed by bombings and killings by extremists who called it a Spark motivating religion-based violence. An attempt to murder was also carried on Sir Rushdie in 2012 when he was delivering a lecture
at an event in Chautauqua, New York.
Achievements And Recognitions
Later in 1983 sir, Rushdie was elected as a fellow member of the Royal society of literature. He was knighted in 2007 for his contribution to the field of literature. Rushdie was the president of PEN America Centre from 2004 to 2006 and the founder of the PEN World Voice Festival. Later in 2007, he was a distinguished writer at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He later in September 2015, joined the Journalism faculty at New York University.
Conclusion
Rushdie has mentored many young Indian writers, and an entire generation of Indo-Anglian writers and has been influential in postcolonial literature. Rushdie though enjoys writing but had an interest in acting. This was subsequently fulfilled by him through his frequent cameo appearances. Indeed after reading this article one can say that sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie is a champion of imagination, reality, ambiguity, and liberty.
Written By - Riya Upadhyaya
Edited by - Kritika Sharma
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