Salman Rushdie Trivia | 110 facts about the famous writer

Salma Rushdie is an Indian-born British – American novelist. He was recently attacked and he is in critical condition.

So let’s find out some trivia and facts about his life and career.

1. His full name is Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie
2. He was born on 19 June 1947
3. He is an Indian-born British-American novelist
4. His work often combines magical realism with historical fiction
5. His work primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations
6. Most of his work is set on the Indian subcontinent
7. Rushdie’s second novel, Midnight’s Children (1981), won the Booker Prize in 1981
8. It was deemed to be “the best novel of all winners” on two occasions
9. Marking the 25th and the 40th anniversary of the prize
10. His fourth novel, The Satanic Verses (1988), was the subject of controversy, provoking protests from Muslims
11. Death threats were made against him, including a fatwa calling for his assassination issued by Ruhollah Khomeini, the supreme leader of Iran, in 1989
12. The British government put Rushdie under police protection
13. In 1983, Rushdie was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
14. He was appointed a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France in 1999
15. Rushdie was knighted in 2007 for his services to literature
16. In 2008, The Times ranked him thirteenth on its list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945
17. Since 2000, Rushdie has lived in the United States
18. He was named Distinguished Writer in Residence at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University in 2015
19. Earlier, he taught at Emory University
20. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters
21. In 2012, he published Joseph Anton: A Memoir, an account of his life in the wake of the controversy over The Satanic Verses
22. On 12 August 2022, a man stabbed Rushdie after rushing onto the stage where the novelist was scheduled to deliver a lecture at an event in Chautauqua, New York
23. Ahmed Salman Rushdie was born in Bombay on 19 June 1947 during the British Raj, into an Indian Kashmiri Muslim family
24. He is the son of Anis Ahmed Rushdie, a Cambridge-educated lawyer-turned-businessman, and Negin Bhatt, a teacher
25. Anis Ahmed Rushdie was dismissed from the Indian Civil Services (ICS) after it emerged that the birth certificate submitted by him had changes to make him appear younger than he was
26. Rushdie has three sisters.[13] He wrote in his 2012 memoir that his father adopted the name Rushdie in honour of Averroes (Ibn Rushd)
27. Rushdie grew up in Bombay
28. He was educated at the Cathedral and John Connon School in Fort, South Bombay
29. Before moving to England from India to attend the Rugby School in Rugby, Warwickshire, and then King’s College, Cambridge
30. From which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history
31. Rushdie has been married four times
32. He was married to his first wife, Clarissa Luard, Literature officer of the Arts Council of England, from 1976 to 1987
33. He fathered a son, Zafar (born 1979), who is married to the London-based jazz singer Natalie Rushdie
34. He left Clarissa Luard in the mid-1980s for the Australian writer Robyn Davidson, to whom he was introduced by their mutual friend Bruce Chatwin
35. His second wife was the American novelist Marianne Wiggins
36. They were married in 1988 and divorced in 1993
37. His third wife, from 1997 to 2004, was British editor and author Elizabeth West
38. They have a son, Milan (born 1997)
39. In 2004, he married Padma Lakshmi, an Indian-American actress, model, and host of the American reality-television show Top Chef
40. The marriage ended in 2007
41. In 1999, Rushdie had an operation to correct ptosis, a problem with the levator palpebrae superioris muscle that causes drooping of the upper eyelid
42. According to Rushdie, it made it increasingly difficult for him to open his eyes
43. Since 2000, Rushdie has lived in the United States, mostly near Union Square in Lower Manhattan, New York City
44. He is a fan of the English football club Tottenham Hotspur
45. The publication of The Satanic Verses in September 1988 caused immediate controversy in the Islamic world because of what was seen by some to be an irreverent depiction of Muhammad
46. The title refers to a disputed Muslim tradition that is related in the book
47. According to this tradition, Muhammad (Mahound in the book) added verses (Ayah) to the Qur’an accepting three Arabian pagan goddesses who used to be worshipped in Mecca as divine beings
48. According to the legend, Muhammad later revoked the verses, saying the devil tempted him to utter these lines to appease the Meccans (hence the “Satanic” verses)
49. However, the narrator reveals to the reader that these disputed verses were actually from the mouth of the Archangel Gabriel
50. The book was banned in many countries with large Muslim communities (13 in total: Iran, India, Bangladesh, Sudan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Thailand, Tanzania, Indonesia, Singapore, Venezuela, and Pakistan).
51. In response to the protests, on 22 January 1989, Rushdie published a column in The Observer that called Muhammad “one of the great geniuses of world history”
52. But noted that Islamic doctrine holds Muhammad to be human, and in no way perfect
53. He held that the novel is not “an anti-religious novel. It is, however, an attempt to write about migration, its stresses and transformations”
54. On 14 February 1989—Valentine’s Day, and also the day of his close friend Bruce Chatwin’s funeral—a fatwā ordering Rushdie’s execution was proclaimed on Radio Tehran by Ayatollah Khomeini, the Supreme leader of Iran at the time, calling the book “blasphemous against Islam”
55. Chapter IV of the book depicts the character of an Imam in exile who returns to incite revolt from the people of his country with no regard for their safety
56. A bounty was offered for Rushdie’s death, and he was thus forced to live under police protection for several years
57. On 7 March 1989, the United Kingdom and Iran broke diplomatic relations over the Rushdie controversy
58. When, on BBC Radio 4, he was asked for a response to the threat, Rushdie said, “Frankly, I wish I had written a more critical book”
59. The publication of the book and the fatwā sparked violence around the world, with bookstores firebombed
60. Muslim communities in several nations in the West held public rallies, burning copies of the book
61. Several people associated with translating or publishing the book were attacked, seriously injured, and even killed
62. Many more people died in riots in some countries
63. Despite the danger posed by the fatwā, Rushdie made a public appearance at London’s Wembley Stadium on 11 August 1993, during a concert by U2
64. On 24 September 1998, as a precondition to the restoration of diplomatic relations with the UK, the Iranian government, then headed by Mohammad Khatami, gave a public commitment that it would “neither support nor hinder assassination operations on Rushdie”
65. Hardliners in Iran have continued to reaffirm the death sentence
66. In early 2005, Khomeini’s fatwā was reaffirmed by Iran’s current spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a message to Muslim pilgrims making the annual pilgrimage to Mecca
67. Additionally, the Revolutionary Guards declared that the death sentence on him is still valid
68. Rushdie has reported that he still receives a “sort of Valentine’s card” from Iran each year on 14 February letting him know the country has not forgotten the vow to kill him and has jokingly referred it as “my unfunny Valentine” in a reference to the song “My Funny Valentine”
69. Despite the threats on Rushdie personally, he said that his family has never been threatened, and that his mother, who lived in Pakistan during the later years of her life, even received outpourings of support
70. Rushdie himself has been prevented from entering Pakistan, however
71. A former bodyguard to Rushdie, Ron Evans, planned to publish a book recounting the behaviour of the author during the time he was in hiding
72. Evans claimed that Rushdie tried to profit financially from the fatwa and was suicidal, but Rushdie dismissed the book as a “bunch of lies” and took legal action against Evans, his co-author and their publisher
73. On 26 August 2008, Rushdie received an apology at the High Court in London from all three parties
74. A memoir of his years of hiding, Joseph Anton, was released on 18 September 2012. Joseph Anton was Rushdie’s secret alias
75. In February 1997, Ayatollah Hasan Sane’i, leader of the bonyad panzdah-e khordad (Fifteenth of Khordad Foundation), reported that the blood money offered by the foundation for the assassination of Rushdie would be increased from $2 million to $2.5 million
76. Then a semi-official religious foundation in Iran increased the reward it had offered for the killing of Rushdie from $2.8 million to $3.3 million
77. In November 2015, former Indian minister P. Chidambaram acknowledged that banning The Satanic Verses was wrong
78. In 1998, Iran’s former president Mohammad Khatami proclaimed the fatwa “finished”
79. But it has never been officially lifted, and in fact has been reiterated several times by Ali Khamenei and other religious officials
80. Yet more money was added to the bounty in February 2016
81. On 3 August 1989, while Mustafa Mahmoud Mazeh was priming a book bomb loaded with RDX explosive in a hotel in Paddington, Central London, the bomb exploded prematurely, destroying two floors of the hotel and killing Mazeh
82. A previously unknown Lebanese group, the Organization of the Mujahidin of Islam, said he died preparing an attack “on the apostate Rushdie”
83. There is a shrine in Tehran’s Behesht-e Zahra cemetery for Mustafa Mahmoud Mazeh that says he was “Martyred in London, 3 August 1989
84. The first martyr to die on a mission to kill Salman Rushdie”
85. Mazeh’s mother was invited to relocate to Iran, and the Islamic World Movement of Martyrs’ Commemoration built his shrine in the cemetery that holds thousands of Iranian soldiers slain in the Iran–Iraq War
86. During the 2006 Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah declared that “If there had been a Muslim to carry out Imam Khomeini’s fatwā against the renegade Salman Rushdie, this rabble who insult our Prophet Mohammed in Denmark, Norway and France would not have dared to do so. I am sure there are millions of Muslims who are ready to give their lives to defend our prophet’s honour and we have to be ready to do anything for that”
87. In 1990, soon after the publication of The Satanic Verses, a Pakistani film entitled International Gorillay (International Guerillas) was released that depicted Rushdie as a “James Bond-style villain” plotting to cause the downfall of Pakistan by opening a chain of casinos and discos in the country
88. He is ultimately killed at the end of the movie
89. The film was popular with Pakistani audiences, and it “presents Rushdie as a Rambo-like figure pursued by four Pakistani guerrillas”
90. The British Board of Film Classification refused to allow it a certificate, as “it was felt that the portrayal of Rushdie might qualify as criminal libel, causing a breach of the peace as opposed to merely tarnishing his reputation”
91. This effectively prevented the release of the film in the UK
92. Two months later, however, Rushdie himself wrote to the board, saying that while he thought the film “a distorted, incompetent piece of trash”, he would not sue if it were released. He later said, “If that film had been banned, it would have become the hottest video in town: everyone would have seen it”
93. While the film was a great hit in Pakistan, it went virtually unnoticed elsewhere
94. In 2010, Anwar al-Awlaki published an Al-Qaeda hit list in Inspire magazine, including Rushdie along with other figures claimed to have insulted Islam
95. Including Ayaan Hirsi Ali, cartoonist Lars Vilks, and three Jyllands-Posten staff members: Kurt Westergaard, Carsten Juste, and Flemming Rose
96. The list was later expanded to include Stéphane “Charb” Charbonnier, who was murdered in a terror attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris, along with 11 other people
97. After the attack, Al-Qaeda called for more killings
98. Rushdie expressed his support for Charlie Hebdo
99. Rushdie was due to appear at the Jaipur Literature Festival in January 2012 in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India
100. However, he later cancelled his event appearance, and a further tour of India at the time, citing a possible threat to his life as the primary reason
101. Several days after, he indicated that state police agencies had lied, in order to keep him away, when they informed him that paid assassins were being sent to Jaipur to kill him
102. Police contended that they were afraid Rushdie would read from the banned The Satanic Verses, and that the threat was real, considering imminent protests by Muslim organizations
103. Meanwhile, Indian authors Ruchir Joshi, Jeet Thayil, Hari Kunzru and Amitava Kumar abruptly left the festival, and Jaipur, after reading excerpts from Rushdie’s banned novel at the festival
104. The four were urged to leave by organizers as there was a real possibility they would be arrested
105. A proposed video link session between Rushdie and the Jaipur Literature Festival was also cancelled at the last minute[104] after the government pressured the festival to stop it
106. Rushdie returned to India to address a conference in New Delhi on 16 March 2012
107. On 12 August 2022, while about to start a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York, Rushdie was attacked by a man who rushed onto the stage and stabbed him repeatedly, including in the neck and abdomen
108. The attacker was pulled away before being taken into custody by a local trooper; Rushdie was airlifted to UPMC Hamot, a tertiary trauma center in Erie, Pennsylvania, where he underwent surgery before being put on a ventilator
109. The suspect was identified as 24-year-old Hadi Matar of Fairview, New Jersey
110. Later in the day, Rushdie’s agent, Andrew Wylie, confirmed that Rushdie had received stab injuries to the liver and hand, and that he might lose an eye