Rushdie
Controversial British-Indian novelist
Rushdie refers to Salman Rushdie, the British-Indian novelist whose 1988 book *The Satanic Verses* prompted Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini to issue a fatwa calling for his death.
The name has become shorthand for controversies over free expression and religious offense: a Rushdie-style backlash, the Rushdie affair.
Rushdie lived under police protection for years and was stabbed in 2022.
- IranIslamic republic in Asia
- bountyReward for capture
- assassination attemptEffort to kill a prominent figure
- hidingStaying out of sight
The Satanic Verses · protection · edict · apostasy · blasphemy · death threat · 1989 · pseudonym
Fiction blending miraculous and mundane
- postcolonialAfter foreign rule ends
- allegorySymbolic tale with deeper meaning
- satireMockery exposing vice
- metafictionLiterature aware of itself
intertextuality · mythology · fabulism · wordplay · plurality · hybridity · unreliable narrator · storytelling
British literary fiction award
- knighthoodHonorary title of nobility
- Man BookerBritish literary prize
- awardHonor given for merit
- shortlistCulled selection for review
Irreverence toward the sacred
- censorshipOfficial content restriction
- bannedOfficially disallowed
- protestsPublic expressions of opposition
- book burningIncinerating texts as censorship
sacrilege · outrage · polarization · condemnation · backlash · taboo · provocation · debate
The Satanic Verses
- FuryClassical avenging deity
Ayatollah Khomeini
- IranIslamic republic in Asia
- bountyReward for capture
- assassination attemptEffort to kill a prominent figure
The Satanic Verses · hiding · protection · edict · apostasy · blasphemy · death threat · 1989 · pseudonym · security
magical realism
Fiction blending miraculous and mundane
- postcolonialAfter foreign rule ends
- allegorySymbolic tale with deeper meaning
- satireMockery exposing vice
metafiction · intertextuality · mythology · fabulism · wordplay · plurality · hybridity · unreliable narrator · storytelling · maximalism
Booker Prize
British literary fiction award
- knighthoodHonorary title of nobility
- Man BookerBritish literary prize
- awardHonor given for merit
blasphemy
Irreverence toward the sacred
- censorshipOfficial content restriction
- bannedOfficially disallowed
- protestsPublic expressions of opposition
book burning · sacrilege · outrage · polarization · condemnation · backlash · taboo · provocation · debate · freedom of speech
- South Asian LiteratureMahabharata, Ramayana, Tagore, Bhagavad Gita
- AuthorsShakespeare, William Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald
- English LiteratureShakespeare, Dickens, Jane Austen, Bronte, Chaucer
- Famous AuthorsShakespeare, Dickens, Austen, Hemingway, Twain
- NovelistsStephen King, Agatha Christie, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen
- British WritersShakespeare, Dickens, Austen, Tolkien, Rowling
Rushdieminimalist
One favoring bare essentials
Ernest Hemingway · minimalists · Cormac McCarthy · Alice Munro
- Salman RushdieControversial novelist, knighted