Salman Rushdie is a novelist and essayist, widely celebrated for his distinctive narrative style and exploration of themes such as identity, migration and the intersection of cultures. Rushdie gained international acclaim with his second novel, Midnight’s Children, which won the Booker Prize in 1981 and was stated in 1993 to have been the ‘Booker of Bookers’. In 2002 it was adapted for the stage by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Rushdie is perhaps best known for The Satanic Verses (1988), which sparked global controversy and led to calls for its banning due to its provocative themes on religion. Despite facing threats and a fatwa issued against him by the Iranian government, Rushdie has continued to write, with works such as The Moor's Last Sigh, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, and Quichotte. After living in the US for 16 years, Rushdie became a citizen in 2016. In August 2022, Rushdie was attacked while giving a talk onstage and sustained serious injury, losing sight in one eye. In April 2024, Rushdie published a memoir recounting the experience called, Knife: Meditations after an Attempted Murder. His first book of fiction since the attack, The Eleventh Hour, a collection of novellas and short stories, will be published later this year. Rushdie is an Honorary Professor in the Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Learn more.