Q 01/05

In which city was Salman Rushdie born in 1947?

A) Delhi

B) Karachi

C) Bombay

D) Lahore

Answer · why

C) Bombay

Bombay, now Mumbai, was his birthplace eight weeks before Indian independence; he later gave the hero of Midnight's Children a birth at the exact stro...

Q 02/05

Midnight's Children won which special 1993 prize?

A) Lost Man Booker

B) Booker of Bookers

C) Golden Man Booker

D) International Booker

Answer · why

B) Booker of Bookers

The Booker of Bookers named it the best winner of the prize's first quarter-century, twelve years after its own 1981 win; a public vote for the 40th a...

Q 03/05

In which English city was The Satanic Verses publicly burned in January 1989?

A) Liverpool

B) Oxford

C) Bradford

D) Brighton

Answer · why

C) Bradford

Bradford's bonfire made headlines where an earlier one in Bolton had been all but ignored; India had banned the novel's import within days of its publ...

Q 04/05

Which Iranian leader issued the fatwa against Rushdie?

A) Ruhollah Khomeini

B) Ali Khamenei

C) Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

D) Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani

Answer · why

A) Ruhollah Khomeini

Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran's supreme leader, issued it in the last months of his life and died without lifting it; nine years passed before Iran's govern...

Q 05/05

On what date was the fatwa against Rushdie proclaimed on Radio Tehran?

A) 25 December 1988

B) 1 January 1989

C) 14 February 1989

D) 11 September 1989

Answer · why

C) 14 February 1989

14 February 1989, Valentine's Day: Rushdie went into hiding under police protection and lived that way for the next nine years.