Ahmed Salman Rushdie
Ahmed Salman Rushdie was born in Bombay on 19 June 1947, into a Kashmiri Muslim family, and near the end of the British Raj (British Rule). Rushdie grew up in Bombay and was educated at Christian School in Bombay, before to England to attend Rugby School in Rugby, Warwickshire, and then King’s College, Cambridge, from which he graduated with a Masters of Arts degree in history. His arrival in England as a child would have been during the first modern wave of Indian people immigrating there. He lived in Britain for many years and now lives in the USA. Rushdie is said to have mentored younger Indian (and ethnic-Indian) writers, influenced an entire generation of Indo-Anglian writers which is distinct from Anglo-Indian authors.
Rushdie’s second novel, Midnight’s Children (1981), won the Booker Prize in 1981 and was deemed to be “the best novel of all winners” on two occasions, marking the 25th and the 40th anniversary of the prize.
His books and awards are given in these links:
https://www.salmanrushdie.com/books/
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Salman-Rushdie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salman_Rushdie
An interview with him is here:
https://hbr.org/2015/09/lifes-work-salman-rushdie
The books which we collectively read were:
Midnight’s Children (1981)
Shame (1983)
Step Across the Line (2002)
Shalimar the Clown (2005)
Quichotte (2019)
Rushdie’s early books are set in the context of post-partition and post-independence of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, giving insights into the multicultural and multi-religious aspects of these three countries, and the major political and historic events. The books deal with social issues such as family planning, drug culture, family life, racism, politics of the day, with the characters bearing the weight of these negative aspects of their lives. Rushdie’s female characters tend not to have any pleasant attributes, perhaps based on the author’s view of women. Rushdie also uses magical realism where fantasy slips into everyday life. While this makes for some interesting use of language, it is hard at times to sort out fiction from reality.
Overall, we found his books difficult to finish reading. They are typically long, with a circular, not linear, story line. For example, small pieces of the future are written into the story without any indication that they are in the future. The detail is often written into rambling sentences. Having said that, the detailed and elaborate language is wonderful to read as is learning about India’s history.