Salman Rushdie: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 15:14, 3 July 2017

Ahmad Salman Rushdie, born 19 June 1947 in Bombay, India, is an Indo-British novelist and essayist.

Personal life

Rushdie was educated in India and in England. Rushdie was sent to study in England when he was fourteen. Since that time, he has spent most of his life studying and working in England. After he had studied history, he was an advertising copywriter. In numerous essays and interviews, Rushdie describes himself as a migrant writer.

As he points out, the influence of Islam has been powerful, though he does not consider himself religious: “The fact that I would not call myself a religious person, doesn’t mean that I can reject the importance of Islam in my life. If you are trying to write about that world, you cannot make a simple rejection of religion. You have to deal with it because it’s the centre of the culture” (quoted in Smale 31).

Literary work

Salman Rushdie published his first novel Grimus 1975, which was highly unsuccessful. After this patchy start, however, Rushdie won around 30 prizes and titles in Sweden, Italy, USA, Austria, India, and Great Britain. With his second novel Midnight's Children (1981), he won the Booker Prize in 1984 and the Booker of Bookers in 1993. In 1983, his third novel Shame had been shortlisted for the Booker Prize and with The Satanic Verses (1988), he won the Whitbread Prize in 1988. Besides his many novels (his last one The Golden House in 2017), he also published two children’s books: Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990) and Luka and the Fire of Life (2010).

Rushdie's works often are politically controversial. They deal with contemporary and historical India and Pakistan, and with Western cities with large populations drawn from parts of the world which emerged from Western imperial conquest, what makes Rushdie not only a postmodernist, but also a postcolonialist. Rushdie raises uncomfortable issues about identity in a fast-changing world without steady values. That is why he got into big trouble in the late 1980's when he had offended many Indians and Pakistani due to the politically controversial topics in Midnight's Children, Shame (1983), and The Satanic Verses. Conservatives such as Margaret Thatcher also were not very enthusiastic about Rushdie's texts.

Salman Rushdie describes himself as a secular, postmodern, postcolonial, third-world cosmopolitan migrant. In his writing he addresses the postcolonial migratory movement with all its problems and ramifications.

Bibliography

Ball, John Clement. Satire and the Postcolonial Novel: V.S. Naipaul, Chinua Achebe, Salman Rushdie. New York and London: Routledge, 2003.

Blake, Andrew. Salman Rushdie: A Beginner’s Guide. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2001.

Cundy, Catherine. Salman Rushdie. Manchester: MUP, 1996.

Erickson, John. Islam and Postcolonial Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Grant, Damian. Salman Rushdie. Plymouth: Northcote House Publishers, 1999.

Mufti, Aamir R. Enlightment in the colony. The Jewish question and the crisis of postcolonial culture. Oxfordshire: Princeton University Press, 2007.

Smale, David. Salman Rushdie. Midnight’s Children, The Satanic Verses. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-Born 1947. Indo-British writer.
+Ahmad Salman Rushdie, born 19 June 1947 in Bombay, India, is an Indo-British [[Novel|novelist]] and essayist.
+== Personal life ==
+Rushdie was educated in India and in England. Rushdie was sent to study in England when he was fourteen. Since that time, he has spent most of his life studying and working in England. After he had studied history, he was an advertising copywriter. In numerous essays and interviews, Rushdie describes himself as a migrant writer.
-'''Childhood and Education'''
+As he points out, the influence of Islam has been powerful, though he does not consider himself religious: “The fact that I would not call myself a religious person, doesn’t mean that I can reject the importance of Islam in my life. If you are trying to write about that world, you cannot make a simple rejection of religion. You have to deal with it because it’s the centre of the culture” (quoted in Smale 31).
+== Literary work ==
-Salman Rushdie is born in June 1947 in Mumbai (then Bombay), India, to businessman Anis Ahmed and his wife Negin Rushdie and grows up in a prosperous Muslim family. In 1954, Rushdie joins an English mission school in Mumbai before he is sent to the prestigious public school Rugby in England at the age of 14. Here he encounters many of the literary works that become the basis for his own writings [such as?]. Rushdie reads history at Kings College, Cambridge, from which he graduates in 1968. In those years, Rushdie becomes a British citizen.
+Salman Rushdie published his first novel ''[[Grimus]]'' 1975, which was highly unsuccessful. After this patchy start, however, Rushdie won around 30 prizes and titles in Sweden, Italy, USA, Austria, India, and Great Britain. With his second novel ''[[Midnight's Children]]'' (1981), he won the Booker Prize in 1984 and the Booker of Bookers in 1993. In 1983, his third novel ''Shame'' had been shortlisted for the Booker Prize and with ''[[The Satanic Verses]]'' (1988), he won the Whitbread Prize in 1988. Besides his many novels (his last one ''[[The Golden House]]'' in 2017), he also published two children’s books: ''[[Haroun and the Sea of Stories]]'' (1990) and ''[[Luka and the Fire of Life]]'' (2010).
-'''Early Career'''
+Rushdie's works often are politically controversial. They deal with contemporary and historical India and Pakistan, and with Western cities with large populations drawn from parts of the world which emerged from Western [[Imperialism|imperial]] conquest, what makes Rushdie not only a postmodernist, but also a postcolonialist. Rushdie raises uncomfortable issues about identity in a fast-changing world without steady values. That is why he got into big trouble in the late 1980's when he had offended many Indians and Pakistani due to the politically controversial topics in ''Midnight's Children'', ''Shame'' (1983), and ''The Satanic Verses''. Conservatives such as Margaret Thatcher also were not very enthusiastic about Rushdie's texts.
-He moves to London, where he works as an advertising copywriter but also starts working on fiction. After his first novel ''The Book of The Pir'' is rejected [by whom?], in 1975, his novel ''Grimus'' appears with limited success. Rushdie marries Clarissa Luard in 1976. ''Midnight’s Children'' is published in 1981 and wins Rushdie the 1984 Booker Prize. The novel’s title refers to a speech by India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who, addressing the people of India, described the creation of the two new states India and Pakistan “at the midnight hour” on the 15th of August, 1947. India and Pakistan can be seen as “Midnight’s Children” accordingly. Using Magic Realism, the novel presents this as all the children who are born at the midnight hour (including the narrator Saleem Sinai himself) and because of this got strange superhuman gifts.
+Salman Rushdie describes himself as a secular, postmodern, postcolonial, third-world cosmopolitan migrant. In his writing he addresses the postcolonial migratory movement with all its problems and ramifications.
-The novel ''Shame'', set in Pakistan, is published in 1983 and in 1986, Rushdie visits Nicaragua and publishes the travelogue ''The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey'' one year later. Rushie divorces Clarissa Luard and marries the American novelist Marianne Wiggins.
-'''''The Satanic Verses''-Controversy'''
+'''Bibliography'''
-In September 1988, Rushdie publishes ''The Satanic Verses'', a novel that wins him the Whitbread Prize but also leads to a lot of controversy. Apart from being banned in many countries, such as India and South Africa, ''The Satanic Verses'' causes protests about the book’s portrayal of the foundation of Islam and even leads to riots. It is publicly burned by a large Muslim community in Bradford, England. Despite these protests, Salman Rushdie refuses to apologise and the publishers do not withdraw the novel.
+Ball, John Clement. ''Satire and the Postcolonial Novel: V.S. Naipaul, Chinua Achebe, Salman Rushdie.'' New York and London: Routledge, 2003.
-Iran’s religious and political leader Ayatollah Khomeini pronounces the sacred command ''fatwa'' on Rushdie, in which the Ayatollah commands that Salman Rushdie’s ''The Satanic Verses'' was blasphemous and that all believers of the Islam had the duty to “hunt the author down and kill him” [source of this quote??]. A bounty of £1.5 million is placed on his head. Following the religious persecution of a British citizen, the British government grants Rushdie the highest level of police protection and security. From this time on, Rushdie has to live in constant secrecy, without being able to show himself publicly without guard and only briefly. Several translators and publishers of ''The Satanic Verses'' are killed or injured and even though, Rushdie has never been harmed, at least 37 people have died so far. Marianne Wiggins separates from him in the aftermath of these events but Rushdie continues writing.
+Blake, Andrew. ''Salman Rushdie: A Beginner’s Guide.'' London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2001.
-'''Continuing Works'''
+Cundy, Catherine. ''Salman Rushdie.'' Manchester: MUP, 1996.
-In 1990, Rushdie publishes ''Haroun and the Sea of Stories'', a book for children which wins him a Writer’s Guild award. Between 1991 and 1995 he also publishes ''Imaginary Homelands'', a collection of reviews and essays, a short book on the film ''The Wizard of Oz'', ''East, West'', a collection of short stories, and ''The Moor’s Last Sigh'', another novel that is awarded by a Whitbread Prize as well. In 1999 and 2001 he publishes his novels ''The Ground Beneath Her Feet'' and ''Fury''. Between 2005 and 2010 the novels ''Shalimar the Clown'', ''The Enchantress of Florence'' and ''Luka and the Fire of Life'' are published, and in 2004, his collection ''Step Across This Line'' appears.
+Erickson, John. ''Islam and Postcolonial Narrative.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
-'''Beliefs and Cultural Aspects'''
+Grant, Damian. ''Salman Rushdie.'' Plymouth: Northcote House Publishers, 1999.
+Mufti, Aamir R. ''Enlightment in the colony. The Jewish question and the crisis of postcolonial culture.'' Oxfordshire: Princeton University Press, 2007.
-Being educated both, in India and in Britain, Rushdie grew up under the influence of Muslim and Indian literature such as ''Thousand and One Nights'' and ''Maharabharata'', the tale of dynastic conflict among the Hindu gods, before he was exposed to literature in English by Shakespeare, Dickens or Joyce. Therefore, Salman Rushdie is regarded as part of what has been described as ‘Indo-Anglian’ culture, describing people who speak and write in English but come from an Indian background. Many of Rushdie’s novels are about people from South Asia, how they have come to inhabit parts of the western world, and how they are troubled by this.
+Smale, David. Salman Rushdie. ''Midnight’s Children, The Satanic Verses.'' New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001.
-As a schoolboy in Rugby, Rushdie also encountered racism. Some of his schoolfellows saw and treated him as a racially inferior alien. Therefore, racism is also a part of Rushdie’s representations of British city life. Although growing up as a Muslim, Rushdie later loses his faith and becomes part of a society which is sometimes referred to as “post-Christian” [source??].
-Whereas Rushdie, because of his British Asian status, at first was often expected to speak as a representative of British Asians more than as an individual, the public reception of ''The Satanic Verses'' made it impossible for Rushdie to be seen as such. The success of his works, however, made him a pioneer for other writers of Asian background by making the world more receptive for their works.
-'''Postmodernism'''
-Rushdie is widely accepted as a postmodernist writer. However, he strongly insists on the importance of a hybridity from which “the new” emerges, without claiming to defend authentic traditions. He regards the flux of identity in postcolonial big cities as London and Bombay as a form of life that destabilised any sense of the term “western superiority” [source??].
-'''Citations'''
-Blake, Andrew. ''Salman Rushdie: A Beginner’s Guide''. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2001.
-Cundy, Catherine. ''Salman Rushdie''. Manchester: MUP, 1996.
---[[User:Grossc6f|Grossc6f]] 12:22, 1 June 2012 (UTC)