Salman Rushdie
Salman Rushdie
Sir Ahmad Salman Rushdie, FRSL, احمد سلمان رشدی; born 19 June 1947) is a British Indian novelist and essayist. His second novel, Midnight's Children, won the Booker Prize in 1981. Much of his fiction is set on the Indian subcontinent. He combines magical realism with historical fiction; his work is concerned with the many connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations...
NationalityIndian
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth19 June 1947
CityMumbai, India
CountryIndia
When I'm writing books, something weird happens; and the result is the books contain a large amount of what you could call 'supernaturalism.' As a writer, I find I need that to explain the world I'm writing about.
I don't think there is a need for an entity like God in my life.
There needs to be a thorough examination, by Muslims everywhere, of why it is that the faith they love breeds so many violent mutant strains.
I'm not saying I am never going to fall in love again, but there is no need to marry.
I would argue that religion comes from a desire to get to the questions of, 'Where do we come from?' and 'How shall we live?' And I would say I don't need religion to answer those questions.
One of the strange things about violent and authoritarian regimes is they don't like the glare of negative publicity. If you can make them sufficiently uncomfortable, they frequently respond by doing what you need them to do in the spirit of setting people free or ceasing arrests.
You can adhere to your faith, but that faith needs to march in line with the rest of the world and needs to find a way of expressing itself in the modern world.
I for one don't need a supreme "sacred" arbiter in order to be a moral being.
Both are responsible. But I know when I write a book it's my name on the book, so I stand or fall by what I sign. And so must she.
I've been gradually reclaiming all kinds of freedoms over these years..,
I used to say: ''there is a God-shaped hole in me.'' For a long time I stressed the absence, the hole. Now I find it is the shape which has become more important.
A purpose of our lives is to broaden what we can understand and say and therefore be.
A poet's work is to name the unnamable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.
Meanwhile, it seems, the world is suffering from compassion fatigue,