60 Fun Facts About Salman Rushdie

In which city was Salman Rushdie born in 1947?

He was born into a Kashmiri Muslim family two months before Indian independence.

In which year did Midnight's Children win the Booker Prize?

It was later named the best of all winners on the prize's 25th and 40th anniversaries.

In how many countries was The Satanic Verses banned?

Numerous killings and bombings were carried out by extremists citing the book.

Which Iranian leader issued the fatwa against Rushdie?

According to his son, Iran's supreme leader never read the book.

On what date was the fatwa proclaimed on Radio Tehran?

It was Valentine's Day and also the day of his friend Bruce Chatwin's funeral.

What did Rushdie's father name the family after?

He revealed this in his memoir Joseph Anton.

Which film did Rushdie say made a writer of him when he first saw it?

He also loved Alice, Swallows and Amazons and, at 16, The Lord of the Rings.

Which English public school did Rushdie attend after emigrating in 1961?

He went on to read history at King's College, Cambridge, graduating in 1968.

What subject did Rushdie study at King's College, Cambridge?

He graduated with a BA in 1968.

Which product's slogan Naughty but Nice did Rushdie write as an advertising copywriter?

He also coined irresistibubble for Aero and That'll do nicely for American Express.

At which advertising agency was Rushdie working when he wrote Midnight's Children?

He became a full-time writer after the novel's success.

What was Rushdie's largely ignored 1975 debut novel?

It was a science fiction tale.

What is the name of the protagonist of Midnight's Children, born at the stroke of India's independence?

He is endowed with special powers and a connection to the other children born at that hour.

Rushdie's 1983 novel Shame is set in a version of which country?

Its characters are based on Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and General Zia-ul-Haq, and it was a close Booker runner-up.

Which Central American country was the subject of Rushdie's 1987 non-fiction book The Jaguar Smile?

He had once been a neighbour of Madame Somoza, wife of the former dictator.

Who are the two protagonists of The Satanic Verses, both Indian Muslim actors?

They fall from a hijacked plane that explodes over the English Channel.

Which prize did The Satanic Verses win in 1988?

It was a Booker finalist but lost to Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda.

Which children's novel did Rushdie write in the shadow of the fatwa and dedicate to his son?

It is an allegorical defence of the power of stories over silence.

What is the name of the villain who represents the end in Rushdie's 1990 children's novel?

The story begins in a city so miserable it has forgotten its name.

Rushdie's 1999 novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet retells which myth with rock stars?

One of its lyrics became the basis of a U2 song, with Rushdie credited as lyricist.

Which band recorded a song called The Ground Beneath Her Feet with lyrics by Rushdie?

Bono had been calling Rushdie from the stage every night on the Zoo TV tour.

At which London stadium did Rushdie make a surprise public appearance during a U2 concert in August 1993?

It was a rare public outing despite the danger of the fatwa.

Which 1995 Rushdie novel is a family saga spanning a century of India's past?

His story collection East, West had appeared the previous year.

Which Mughal emperor's court is visited by a European in The Enchantress of Florence (2008)?

Ursula Le Guin praised it as a sumptuous mixture of history with fable.

Which classic did Rushdie retell in his 2019 novel Quichotte?

The Golden House, a satire of contemporary America, preceded it in 2017.

What is the name of the woman who breathes an empire into existence in Rushdie's 2023 novel Victory City?

She is cursed with a 247-year lifespan and her city Bisnaga is inspired by Vijayanagara.

What was the secret alias Rushdie used while in hiding, later the title of his 2012 memoir?

He combined the first names of two favourite writers.

On what date did the UK and Iran break diplomatic relations over the Rushdie affair?

Relations were only restored in 1998 after Iran pledged not to support assassination attempts.

What happened to Hitoshi Igarashi, the Japanese translator of The Satanic Verses, in 1991?

Its Italian translator was stabbed days earlier and survived; the Norwegian publisher was shot in 1993.

Where was Hitoshi Igarashi an associate professor of comparative Islamic culture?

His murder remains one of the darkest episodes of the affair.

What happened in a Paddington hotel on 3 August 1989?

A shrine in Tehran calls Mustafa Mahmoud Mazeh the first martyr to die on a mission to kill Rushdie.

What does Rushdie say he receives from Iran every 14 February?

He calls it his unfunny Valentine and says it has become rhetoric rather than a real threat.

Which Iranian president declared the fatwa finished in 1998 as a condition of restoring ties with the UK?

It has nevertheless been reaffirmed several times by Ayatollah Khamenei and others.

Where was Rushdie attacked and stabbed on stage on 12 August 2022?

He was airlifted to a trauma centre in Erie, Pennsylvania, and put on a ventilator.

What lasting injuries did Rushdie suffer in the 2022 attack?

His agent Andrew Wylie confirmed the injuries in October 2022.

What is the title of Rushdie's 2024 memoir about the attack?

In it he holds fictional conversations with the assailant, whom he calls A.

What sentence did attacker Hadi Matar receive in May 2025 for the stabbing?

He was later also found guilty of federal terrorism charges linked to the fatwa.

Rushdie says he had a vivid dream two days before the stabbing of being attacked where?

It made him consider cancelling the event.

In which year was Rushdie knighted for services to literature?

Iran and Pakistan called in their British envoys to protest, and al-Qaeda called it an insult to Islam.

How many wives has Rushdie had?

His wives include the writers Marianne Wiggins and Elizabeth West and the presenter Padma Lakshmi.

Which television presenter and model was married to Rushdie from 2004 to 2007?

They first met in 1999 when he was 51 and she was 28.

Which fellow writer introduced Rushdie to Robyn Davidson, for whom he left his first wife?

Chatwin's funeral fell on the same day the fatwa was announced.

Since emigrating in 2000, near which Manhattan landmark has Rushdie mostly lived?

He bought a safe house on London's Bishops Avenue in 1991 before the move.

In which 2001 film did Rushdie make a cameo appearance?

He has said he would have become an actor had his writing not succeeded.

Which director made the 2012 film of Midnight's Children, co-written with Rushdie?

Rushdie had interviewed her about her film Water when guest-hosting Charlie Rose.

Rushdie was president of which writers' organisation from 2004 to 2006?

He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1983.

At which institution was Rushdie Distinguished Writer in Residence from 2006, and where are his archives?

He joined NYU's journalism faculty in 2015.

Rushdie says his favourite novelist is probably which writer, on more days than anyone else?

He named Borges, Bulgakov, Lewis Carroll and Gunter Grass as early influences.

Which English football club does Rushdie support?

He also holds a Person of Indian Origin card.

Where did The Times rank Rushdie on its 2008 list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945?

Time magazine named him one of the world's 100 most influential people in 2023.

What eye condition did Rushdie have surgery for in 1999?

He said that without it he would have been unable to open his eyes within a couple of years.

Reviewing his 2015 novel, Ursula K. Le Guin called Rushdie our what?

Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights adds up to 1,001 nights and is a modern take on the Arabian tales.

Which award did two men who went to Rushdie's aid in 2022 receive in 2025?

The attacker was pulled away before a state trooper took him into custody.

Rushdie's novel Shame based its characters on General Zia-ul-Haq and which other Pakistani leader?

The 1983 book won France's Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger and was a close runner-up for the Booker.

How many times have Rushdie's novels been shortlisted for the Booker Prize?

Midnight's Children, Shame, The Satanic Verses, The Moor's Last Sigh and Quichotte all made the list, with only the first winning.

The fatwa against Rushdie was proclaimed on the day of which close friend's funeral?

The date, 14 February 1989, was also Valentine's Day, which is why Rushdie still receives a grim annual reminder from Iran.

What was the 1990 Pakistani film that cast Rushdie as a Bond-style villain?

The character is killed at the end, and the film proved popular with Pakistani audiences.

Which Egyptian Nobel laureate contributed to the 1993 solidarity collection For Rushdie?

He called the terrorism aimed at Rushdie 'unjustifiable, indefensible'; 100 writers and intellectuals from the Muslim world took part.

Which 2005 Rushdie novel won India's Hutch Crossword Book Award?

It was also a Whitbread finalist in the UK, and Rushdie has used it to lament the division of Kashmir, his family's homeland.

How does Rushdie describe his own religious position, in a 2006 PBS interview?

Born into a liberal Kashmiri Muslim family in Bombay, he has called religion 'a medieval form of unreason'.