DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT

Salman Rushdie

A MILLION LITTLE PIECES. Lolita. The Anarchist Cookbook. Lots of books are considered controversial, but few lead to death threats. When Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses hit bookstores in 1988, the author was forced to go into hiding—for nine years. Iran’s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, deemed the book an insult to Islam and declared a fatwa, or religious edict, calling on Muslims to execute Rushdie (b. 1947). At the heart of this firestorm were two dreams of Gibreel Farishta, a fictional movie star who, after surviving a plane crash, imagines that he is the Archangel Gabriel. In one of them, Gibreel dreams of a brothel where the prostitutes adopt the names of the prophet Muhammad’s wives. Only in 1998 did the Iranian foreign minister finally drop the official death threat against Rushdie. Though The Satanic Verses made more headlines than most books, there’s much more to Salman Rushdie and his writing. See how much of it you know in this quick quiz.

1. While he was in hiding, what children’s book did Rushdie write for his son Zafar?

2. In Rushdie’s Booker Prize–winning novel Midnight’s Children (1981), 1001 children are born with magical powers at midnight on the day of what historical event?

3. What Greek myth inspired the plot of The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999) ?

4. What honor did Rushdie achieve in 2008?

 

ANSWERS

1. Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990).

2. India’s independence from British rule, August 15, 1947. The previous day, British India had been partitioned into secular India and Muslim Pakistan.

3. The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, about a musician who follows his dead wife into the underworld.

4. Midnight’s Children was selected as the winner of the Best of the Booker award. Readers around the world voted the 1981 novel as the best of the prestigious prize winners.