So begins the extraordinary story of how a writer was forced underground, moving from house to house, with the constant presence of an armed police protection team. He was asked to choose an alias that the police could call him by. He thought of writers he loved and combinations of their names; then it came to him: Conrad and Chekhov – Joseph Anton.

How do a writer and his family live with the threat of murder for over nine years? How does he go on working? How does he fall in and out of love? How does despair shape his thoughts and actions, how and why does he stumble, how does he learn to fight back? In this remarkable memoir Rushdie tells that story for the first time; the story of one of the crucial battles, in our time, for freedom of speech. He talks about the sometimes grim, sometimes comic realities of living with armed policemen, and of the close bonds he formed with his protectors; of his struggle for support and understanding from governments, intelligence chiefs, publishers, journalists, and fellow writers; and of how he regained his freedom.

It is a book of exceptional frankness and honesty, compelling, provocative, moving, and of vital importance. Because what happened to Salman Rushdie was the first act of a drama that is still unfolding somewhere in the world every day.

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Sunday, June 3, 2012
Hay Festival, Hay-on-Wye, Wales
Salman Rushdie Talks with Peter Florence
www.hayfestival.com

“You’ve reached the age at which people in this family cross the border into the magical world. It’s your turn for an adventure—yes, it’s finally here!” So says Haroun to his younger brother, twelve-year-old Luka, in Salman Rushdie’s thrilling, delightful, lyrically crafted fable for the young and young at heart.

The adventure begins one beautiful starry night in the land of Alifbay, where a terrible thing happens: Luka’s father, Rashid, the legendary storyteller of Kahani, falls suddenly and inexplicably into a sleep so deep that nothing and no one can rouse him. To save him from slipping away entirely, Luka must embark on a journey through the world of magic with his loyal companions, Bear the dog and Dog the bear, as they encounter a slew of fantastical creatures, strange allies, and challenging obstacles along the way—all in the hopes of stealing the Fire of Life, a seemingly impossible and exceedingly treacherous task.

Praise

“Luka and the Fire of Life [and] Haroun and the Sea of Stories . . . are personal fables dealing with serious issues—Haroun with the silencing of writers, Luka with a father’s mortality—and both showcase Mr. Rushdie’s verbal pyrotechnics, wit, erudition and skill for spinning a yarn, appealing equally to young adults and older readers.”
—The Wall Street Journal

“Luka and the Fire of Life is a beautiful book. Well written (obviously), imaginative (astonishingly so), and wonderful in the way it builds heartfelt magical fiction for kids who love video games: It’s like a bridge, built between generations, fabulous and strange and from the heart.” —Neil Gaiman

“A book that can reach out to meet and move and touch a reader at any time of the reader’s life, from childhood to middle age and beyond, is a rare and magical book, and Salman Rushdie is a rare and magical writer.” —Michael Chabon

“Twenty years ago, the average 12-year-old-boy imbibed most of his stories through the television. Today he more likely gets them through video games. Rushdie, almost
alone among modern fiction writers, gives these games their narrative due…. Well worth reading.” —Los Angeles Times

“The characters come either from Rushdie’s lively interpretations of mythology or his jovial, limber imagination. . . . His exuberant wordplay is evident on every page.” —The New York Times Book Review

“High art and family entertainment all wrapped into one neat package.” —New York Post

“Rushdie’s usual lyrical, narrative style is on full display here, flowing easily through puns, wordplay, rhyming and the dialectical playfulness that defines his oeuvre. . . . Rushdie goes in with both eyes open, brushing aside wishful thinking for a more honest look at how our children perceive the world and how the challenges of modern life can work with, rather than against, the traditions of our past.” —BookPage

“Rushdie unleashes his imagination on an alternate world informed by the surreal logic of video games. . . . A fun tale for younger readers.” —Publishers Weekly

“It is hard to overstate the lightheartedness and love with which Salman Rushdie conveys this brief tale of a boy on a quest. . . . But the serious undercurrents are many and thought-provoking.” —Associated Press

“Readers will rightfully delight in Rushdie’s brilliant wordplay throughout. . . . A celebration of storytelling . . . and a colorful, kick-up-your-heels delight.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“In a bustling and minutely imagined fabular landscape, crammed with allegorical figures and places, Luka moves swiftly between the mythological and the contemporary. . . . [Rushdie] captures brilliantly that moment when adults enrapture children by behaving like children themselves.” —The Guardian

“An engrossing thriller for younger readers.” —The Washington Post

A celebration of storytelling, a possible prequel to the book Rushdie is said to be writing about his own enforced “slumber,” and a colorful, kick-up-your-heels delight.”—Kirkus Review, starred review

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One of the most controversial and acclaimed novels ever written, The Satanic Verses is Salman Rushdie’s best-known and most galvanizing book. Set in a modern world filled with both mayhem and miracles, the story begins with a bang: the terrorist bombing of a London-bound jet in midflight. Two Indian actors of opposing sensibilities fall to earth, transformed into living symbols of what is angelic and evil. This is just the initial act in a magnificent odyssey that seamlessly merges the actual with the imagined. A book whose importance is eclipsed only by its quality, The Satanic Verses is a key work of our times.

Praise

Winner of the Whitbread Prize for Best Novel

“A staggering achievement, brilliantly enjoyable.” —Nadine Gordimer

“[A] torrent of endlessly inventive prose, by turns comic and enraged, embracing life in all its contradictions. In this spectacular novel, verbal pyrotechnics barely outshine its psychological truths.”—Newsday

“Rushdie is a storyteller of prodigious powers, able to conjure up whole geographies, causalities, climates, creatures, customs, out of thin air.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“Exhilarating, populous, loquacious, sometimes hilarious, extraordinary . . . a roller-coaster ride over a vast landscape of the imagination.”—The Guardian (London)

“A novel of metamorphoses, hauntings, memories, hallucinations, revelations, advertising jingles, and jokes. Rushdie has the power of description, and we succumb.”
—The Times (London)

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Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very moment of India’s independence. Greeted by fireworks displays, cheering crowds, and Prime Minister Nehru himself, Saleem grows up to learn the ominous consequences of this coincidence. His every act is mirrored and magnified in events that sway the course of national affairs; his health and well-being are inextricably bound to those of his nation; his life is inseparable, at times indistinguishable, from the history of his country. Perhaps most remarkable are the telepathic powers linking him with India’s 1,000 other “midnight’s children,” all born in that initial hour and endowed with magical gifts.

This novel is at once a fascinating family saga and an astonishing evocation of a vast land and its people–a brilliant incarnation of the universal human comedy. Twenty-five years after its publication, Midnight’s Children stands apart as both an epochal work of fiction and a brilliant performance by one of the great literary voices of our time.

PRAISE

Winner of the Best of the Bookers

Winner of the Booker of Bookers

“Extraordinary . . . one of the most important [novels] to come out of the English-speaking world in this generation.”
–The New York Review of Books

“The literary map of India is about to be redrawn. . . . Midnight’s Children sounds like a continent finding its voice.” –The New York Times

“In Salman Rushdie, India has produced a glittering novelist– one with startling imaginative and intellectual resources, a master of perpetual storytelling.”
–The New Yorker

“A marvelous epic . . . Rushdie’s prose snaps into playback and flash-forward . . . stopping on images, vistas, and characters of unforgettable presence. Their range is as rich as India herself.” –Newsweek

“Burgeons with life, with exuberance and fantasy . . . Rushdie is a writer of courage, impressive strength, and sheer stylistic brilliance.”
–The Washington Post Book World

“Pure story–an ebullient, wildly clowning, satirical, descriptively witty charge of energy.”
–Chicago Sun-Times

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The Best American Series is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of periodicals. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected—and most popular—of its kind.

This brilliant collection, edited by Salman Rushdie, boasts a “magnificent array” (Library Journal) of voices both new and recognized.With Rushdie at the helm, the 2008 edition “reflects the variety of substance and style and the consistent quality that readers have come to expect” (Publishers Weekly).

“We all live in and with and by stories, every day, whoever and wherever we are. The freedom to tell each other the stories of ourselves, to retell the stories of our culture and beliefs, is profoundly connected to the larger subject of freedom itself.”—Salman Rushdie

The Best American Short Stories 2008 includes stories from

KEVIN BROCKMEIER • ALLEGRA GOODMAN • A. M. HOMES • NICOLE KRAUSS • JONATHAN LETHEM • STEVEN MILLHAUSER • DANIYAL MUEENUDDIN • ALICE MUNRO • GEORGE SAUNDERS • TOBIAS WOLFF • and others

Click here to learn more

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Praise

A Time Book of the Year

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
The Washington Post Book World –Los Angeles Times Book Review –St. Louis Post-Dispatch –Rocky Mountain News

ONE OF THE BEST NOVELS OF THE YEAR
Time –Chicago Tribune –The Christian Science Monitor

“A sprawling tale of love and politics. . . . A daring aesthetic and political balancing act that traffics in many of the major concerns of post-colonial literature, but always within an evolving and bravely empathetic story. . . . One of Rushdie’s best, and an important and rewarding must-read.”—National Post

“Read Shalimar the Clown for the effervescent fun factor that is always present in Rushdie’s work. . . and for its devastating portrait of the destruction of Kashmir.”
—The Globe and Mail

“[Shalimar the Clown] is that rare highwire act, a literary thriller. It seems a vigorous rebutal to the recent dismissal of fiction by V. S. Naipaul, to the effect that ‘if you write a novel… it’s of no account.’” —Financial Times (UK)

“A masterly deployment of interconnected narratives spanning six decades. . . . Dazzling. . . . A magical-realist masterpiece that equals, and arguably surpasses, the achievements of Midnight’s Children, Shame and TheMoor’s Last Sigh. The Swedes won’t dare to offend Islam by giving Rushdie the Nobel Prize he deserves more than any other living writer. Injustice rules.” —Kirkus Reviews

“The. . .transformation of Shalimar into a terrorist is easily the most impressive achievement of the book, and here one must congratulate Rushdie for having made artistic capital out of his own suffering, for the years spent under police protection, hunted by zealots, have been poured into the novel in ways which ring hideously true. . . . Shalimar the Clown is a powerful parable about the willing and unwilling subversion of multiculturalism.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Dazzling . . . Modern thriller, Ramayan epic, courtroom drama, slapstick comedy, wartime adventure, political satire, village legend–they’re all blended here magnificently.”
–The Washington Post Book World

“A commanding story . . . [a] harrowing climax . . . Revenge is an ancient and powerful engine of narrative.”
–The New York Times Book Review

“Absorbing . . . Everywhere [Rushdie] takes us there is both love and war, in strange and terrifying combinations, painted in swaying, swirling, world-eating prose that annihilates the borders between East and West, love and hate, private lives and the history they make.”
–Time

“A vast, richly peopled, beautiful and deeply rageful book that serves as a profound and disturbing artifact of our times.” –San Francisco Chronicle

“Marvelous . . . brilliant . . . a story worthy of [Rushdie’s] genius.” –Detroit Free Press

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Collected Non-Fiction 1992-2002

With astonishing range and depth, the essays, speeches, and opinion pieces assembled in this book chronicle a ten-year intellectual odyssey by Salman Rushdie. Step Across This Line concentrates in one volume Salman Rushdie’s fierce intelligence, uncanny social commentary, and irrepressible wit—about soccer, The Wizard of Oz, and writing, about fighting the Iranian fatwa and turning with the millennium, and about September 11, 2001. Ending with the eponymous, never-before-published speeches, this collection is, in Rushdie’s words, a “wake-up call” about the way we live, and think, now.

Praise

“This book is full of so much that is ‘relevant’ that the very word seems inadequate.” —Los Angeles Times

“Sometimes pensive, sometimes marvelously funny, always lucid essays, reviews, and occasional pieces by the renowned Anglo-Indian novelist.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“The essays crackle with [Rushdie’s] enthusiasm, humor, and intelligence.” —The Miami Herald

“Every reader will find at least one essay in this collection that will bring anger and one that will cause audible laughter—and that is what makes Rushdie such an intelligent critic and thought-provoking writer.”
—Rocky Mountain News

“Step Across This Line . . . became my favorite reading this summer. . . . [Rushdie’s essays] mostly celebrate the blurriness of our characters, whether national, religious, or personal, often taking a smudge stick to such boundaries.”—Mary Karr, author of Cherry and The Liars’ Club

“[Rushdie’s] turns and words are frequently exhilarating. There is . . . lilting pleasure in the collection.”
—The New York Times Book Review

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Malik Solanka, historian of ideas and world-famous dollmaker, steps out of his life one day, abandons his family in London without a word of explanation, and flees for New York. There’s a fury within him, and he fears he has become dangerous to those he loves. He arrives in New York at a time of unprecedented plenty, in the highest hour of America’s wealth and power, seeking to “erase” himself. But fury is all around him. An astonishing work of explosive energy, Fury is by turns a pitiless and pitch-black comedy, a love story of mesmerizing force, and a disturbing inquiry into the darkest side of human nature.

Praise

A New York Times Notable Book

“Salman Rushdie’s great grasp of the human tragicomedy–its dimensions, its absurdities and horrors–has made him one of the most intelligent fiction writers in the English language.”
–Gail Caldwell, The Boston Globe

“Fury is a profoundly, ecstatically affirmative work of fiction. It reaffirms Rushdie’s standing . . . at the very front rank of contemporary literary novelists.”
–Baltimore Sun

“Rushdie’s ideas–about society, about culture, about politics–are embedded in his stories and in the interlocking momentum with which he tells them. . . . All of Rushdie’s synthesizing energy, the way he brings together ancient myth and old story, contemporary incident and archetypal emotion, transfigures reason into a waking dream.”
–Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Well, here it is, then, his first 3-D, full-volume American novel, finger-snapping, wildly stupefying, often slyly funny, red-blooded and red-toothed. [Fury] twinkles brightly in tragicomic passages.”
–The Miami Herald

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READER’S GUIDE

1. Rushdie writes, “Life is fury. Fury–sexual, Oedipal, political, magical, brutal–drives us to our finest heights and coarsest depths.” Consider what he means by assigning all of these implications to the word. How does it play into the plot and characterizations of the novel? Why do you think he chose it as the title?

2.What do you think is the significance of the fact that Fury is set in a very specific place during a very specific, and recent, time? Consider the events Rushdie talks about, the major political and social players who surface throughout the novel, and the name brands, TV shows, and other cultural icons he mentions at regular intervals.

3.Describe Malik Solanka. How does his profession play into his personality? What is the nature of his relationships with others? How does his cultural background inform his character?

4.Discuss how humor functions in the book. Is this a satire? Does the humor render the novel more real or more surreal?

5.What sorts of religious, literary, philosophical, and/or mythical references appear throughout the book? What functions do they serve within their respective contexts?

6.What is the significance of Malik’s creation, Little Brain? He describes it as “first a doll, later a puppet, then an animated cartoon, and afterward an actress . . . a talk-show host, gymnast, ballerina, or supermodel. . . .” Is there something to be said for the process it underwent to become the final result?

7.There are many different subplots running through the novel. How do they relate to one another? How do they relate to Malik?

8.How do love and romance function in the novel? Malik encounters several women throughout the course of the book; what are their similarities? differences?

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