A Conversation with Sir Salman Rushdie

Overview

Sir Salman Rushdie is one of the most celebrated authors of our time—of any time. A brilliant provocateur, he's penned a handful of classic novels, influenced a generation of writers, and received a Queen's Knighthood for "services to literature." He stands as both a pop culture icon and one of the most thought-provoking proponents for free speech today.

Sir Salman Rushdie's novels include The Satanic Verses, The Moor's Last Sigh, The Ground Beneath Her Feet and 2008's The Enchantress of Florence. For his masterwork of magic realism, Midnight's Children, he won the prestigious Booker Prize, and later, the Best of the Booker. The novel has since been adapted to film by the Academy Award-nominated director, Deepa Mehta, and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. He is also the author of bestselling memoir Joseph Anton. His new novel, Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, will be published in September 2015 by Random House.

An eclectic writer and noted public intellectual, Rushdie has won many of the world's top literary prizes, published a heralded collection of essays, Step Across the Line, written a book on The Wizard of Oz, and served for two years as president of The PEN American Center, the world's oldest human rights organization.