Salman Rushdie is an Indian-British author. Born in India, Rushdie left his home and family in 1961 at the age of 14 to study in the United Kingdom. He later secured his British citizenship and studied at King’s College, University of Cambridge. He is best known for his 1988 book The Satanic Verses, which was controversial due to being labelled blasphemous by some Muslim nations and groups and led to the state of Iran offering money for his death

Throughout his now-illustrious writing career, Rushdie has published dozens of titles. His second book Midnight’s Children was published in 1981, won the Booker Prize, and earned him a reputation on the literary stage. He subsequently published novels including Shame (1983), The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999), Fury (2001), Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights (2015), The Golden House (2017), Quichotte (2019), and most recently, Victory City (2023). His other works include the short story and essay collections The Eleventh Hour: A Quintet of Stories (2025), In Good Faith (1990), Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction (1992-2002), and Languages of Truth: Essays (2003-2020); as well as the memoirs The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey (1987), Joseph Anton: A Memoir (2012), and Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder (2024), which reflects on his 2022 stabbing at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York.

Rushdie’s work is most often categorized as magical realism, and explores the boundaries between fantasy and realism. In numerous interviews, Rushdie traces his early literary inspiration to works including L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderful (1865), and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Rings (1955). These early influences provide insight into Rushdie’s literary preoccupation with magic, surrealism, and fantasy. Throughout his work, he often incorporates such fabulist elements into grittier realist depictions of life on the Indian subcontinent. Rushdie has also identified Indian oral storytelling traditions as inspiring to his own canon.

Rushdie is also known for tackling larger political commentaries in his work. In a 1995 New York Times article, Robert Coover describes Rushdie’s work as “sometimes poignant and intimate, sometimes boisterously inventive, sometimes gently provocative” and most often, “imaginative and politically engaged” (Coover, Robert. “There’s No Place Like Oz.” The New York Times, 15 Jan. 1995). His most controversial political text is The Satanic Verses. After its publication, Rushdie had numerous attempts on his life and death threats, including from Iran’s supreme leader Ruhollah Khomeini. The work was declared heretical because of its allegedly irreverent presentation of the Prophet Muhammad.