Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie's novels include Grimus, Midnight’s Children (which was awarded the Booker Prize in 1981), Shame, The Satanic Verses, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, The Moor’s Last Sigh, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Fury, Shalimar the Clown and The Enchantress of Florence, and Luka and the Fire of Life.

He is also the author of a book of stories, East, West, and three works of non-fiction – Imaginary Homelands, The Jaguar Smile, and Step Across This Line. He is the co-editor of Mirrorwork, an anthology of contemporary Indian writing, and of the 2008 Best American Short Stories anthology.

From Rushdie's Q & A with Sital Patel at the Wall Street Journal's Speakeasy blog:

As a person of literary note, what would you say to young inspiring writers in the world of social media and short attention spans?

I don’t think it will affect it that much. Every time there has been a new form of communication that has emerged, people have always predicted that it will kill the novel. Radio was supposed to have killed the novel. Movies, TV were supposed to kill the novel, but none of them have done that. There is something very persistent about sitting quietly and enjoying an interaction between the reader and the words in a book. People really like it. I think the novel has never had the size of audience that an episode of “Friends” has, unless it’s been freakishly like Harry Potter or the Twilight books, or God help us, “50 Shades of Grey.” The number of people reading the novel style has stayed the same, remarkably loyal.

You talk to a lot of your fans on Twitter. What has been most surprising to you when Tweeting?

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine bullied me to use it. As long as...[read on]

Learn about Salman Rushdie's five best fantasy novels for all ages.

Rushdie's The Satanic Verses is among Christopher Hitchens' six best books, Atul Gawande's favorite books, Karl O. Knausgaard's top ten angel books, and Diarmaid MacCulloch's five best books about blasphemy.

--Marshal Zeringue