Salman Rushdie

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Salman Rushdie at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2017
Salman Rushdie at the 2017 Munich Literature Festival.

Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie ( Urdu سلمان رشدی; Born  June 19, 1947 in Bombay , India ) is an Indian- British writer . He is one of the most important Anglo-Asian representatives of contemporary British literature . He enriches his stories with elements from the world of fairy tales. This mixing of myth and fantasy with real life is known as magical realism . Rushdie writes in English.

life and work

Family and education

Salman Rushdie grew up in Bombay (now Mumbai ) in a Muslim family. His father, a lawyer and businessman from a formerly wealthy family by the name of Khwaja Muhammad Din Khaliqi Dehlavi, named himself Anis Ahmed Rushdie out of admiration for Ibn Rushd, the twelfth-century Spanish-Arabic philosopher who was known in Europe as Averroes got known. Anis sent his son to rugby school in England at the age of 14 . He then studied history at King's College at Cambridge University . Until he was able to earn his living as a writer, he worked in the theater, as a freelance journalist and mostly as a copywriter in advertising .

Early work

With Grimus , Salman Rushdie published his first work in 1975, but it did not bring him the success he had hoped for. His international breakthrough came in 1981 with the book Mitternachtskinder , for which he was awarded the Booker Prize . His third book Shame and Shame was published in 1983.

Satanic Verses and Death Sentence

He recorded another success in 1988 with his work The Satanic Verses . The portrayal of the life of the Prophet Mohammed , reflected in the nightmares of a protagonist, prompted the Iranian head of state Khomeini to sentence Rushdie to death by means of a fatwa on February 14, 1989. The reason for this fatwa was that the book was "against Islam, the Prophet and the Koran". Khomeini called on Muslims around the world to enforce it. The Iranian "semi-public" foundation 15th Chordat offered a bounty of initially one million US dollars . Rushdie learned of his death sentence from a reporter for the BBC on the day of the funeral of his longtime friend and travel companion Bruce Chatwin (1940-1989).

Religious authorities in Saudi Arabia and the sheikhs of the famous Egyptian Azhar mosque condemned the fatwa as illegal and contrary to Islam. They justified this on the basis of the fact that the Sharia does not allow a person to be sentenced to death without a trial and that it has no legal force outside the Islamic world (or states in which Sharia is applied). At the Islamic Conference in March 1989, all member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference ( Iran excluded) objected to the fatwa.

Salman Rushdie expressed regret to the Islamic community about "the concern that the publication has caused sincere followers of Islam". But even after Khomeini's death on June 3, 1989, the death sentence was upheld. In 1991 the Chordat Foundation's bounty was doubled. Because of the death threats he received, the poet lived in forced isolation in constantly changing places of residence and under police protection. The numerous threats and attacks against the publishers and the murder of a translator did not prevent the book from being successful. It became widely used. The threats are still represented today by the spiritual leader of Iran and Khomeini's successor, Seyyed Chāmene'ī , as well as by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard . Iran said the fatwa could not be withdrawn, only the issuer who died could do so. In September 2012 the bounty was increased again and was now $ 3.3 million. Rushdie has not had a bodyguard for several years and is no longer guarded around the clock.

In February 2016, the Iranian news agency Fars reported that on the anniversary of the fatwa , forty Iranian state media had raised the bounty for Rushdie's death by $ 600,000 - to a total of almost $ 4 million.

Escape and underground

On his escape, Rushdie wrote the fairy tale Harun and the Sea of ​​Stories for his son , in which a storyteller loses the ability to tell stories because the "story tap" is turned off and he no longer has access to the "narrative water". His son sets out to save his father. This story served as a parable of Rushdie's own situation, underground and separated from the family. Rushdie has received many prestigious prizes, the most outstanding of which is the EU Aristeion Literature Prize for his complete works.

The next work, The Moors Last Sigh , caused a sensation when it appeared in 1995, especially in India. Very clear allusions to the leaders of the Hindu nationalist movement in Mumbai resulted in the book being placed on the censorship index in that city.

In 1999 he wrote the work The Ground Under Her Feet and in 2001 the novel Fury . A collection of bizarre stories is called East, West . In 2005 Rushdie published the novel Shalimar the Clown , which appeared in German in 2006 under the title Shalimar the Fool . Salman Rushdie was awarded honorary doctorates for his life's work in 1999 by the Free University of Berlin and the University of Liège .

In 2004, Rushdie was her fourth marriage to Indian-born model Padma Lakshmi . After three years the marriage broke up.

Salman Rushdie in Warsaw (October 3, 2006)

Rushdie is one of the signatories of the Manifesto of the 12 against Islamism as a new totalitarian threat, which was published on March 1, 2006 in the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo .

On June 16, 2007, Buckingham Palace announced that Queen Elizabeth II intended to knight Rushdie along with 945 athletes, greats and businesspeople as a Knight Bachelor . The announcement sparked official diplomatic protests in Iran and Pakistan; British ambassadors were summoned in both countries. The Iranian Foreign Ministry called the decision to honor the "hated apostate " clear evidence of Islamophobia among senior British officials. Street protests, some of which were violent, subsequently broke out in Iran, Pakistan and Malaysia. In Kashmir , the economy stalled for a day. The accolade took place in June 2007.

After numerous threats of violence and calls for murder by Islamists, Rushdie canceled his participation in India's largest literary festival in Jaipur in January 2012. The native Indian should have made the opening speech. Rushdie himself reiterated a short time later that he believed that the threats made against him were in fact fabricated by the police for tactical reasons, in order to motivate him to retreat and not cause any disturbance.

Since 2000, Rushdie has lived near Union Square in New York most of the time . In spring 2007 he took up a five-year visiting professorship as Distinguished Writer in Residence at Emory University in Atlanta .

Autobiography and the present

In 2012 he published his autobiography under the title Joseph Anton . "Joseph Anton" was the code name that he had acquired for his anonymity life after being asked by the police . It is a combination of the first names of his two favorite writers Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekhov . The ruthless book is consistently viewed as Rushdie's best work.

Rushdie kept pointing out the dangers that religions can pose. In 2015 he said after the terrorist attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo : “Religion, a medieval form of unreasonableness, when combined with modern weapons, becomes a real threat to our freedoms . Such religious totalitarianism has caused a fatal mutation in the heart of Islam and we are seeing the tragic consequences in Paris today. "

The Iranian government responded to Rushdie's presence at the opening press conference of the Frankfurt Book Fair 2015 with an official participation refusal; some publishing houses based in Iran were nevertheless represented with a stand, albeit not right next to the large official stand, which remained empty.

In 2019 he was shortlisted for the British Booker Prize for the fifth time with his novel Quichotte .

Awards (selection)

Works (in German)

Novels

Autobiography

  • Joseph Anton: Salman Rushdie. The autobiography. (Original title: A Memoir. 2012). Translated from English by Verena von Koskull and Bernhard Robben . Bertelsmann, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-570-10114-8 .

Other fonts

  • The Jaguar's smile. A trip through Nicaragua ( The Jaguar Smile. A Nicaraguan Journey ). Piper, Munich 1987; Rowohlt, Reinbek 2009, ISBN 978-3-499-24871-9
  • East, West ( East, West ). Short stories. Kindler, Munich 1995; Rowohlt, Reinbek 2010, ISBN 978-3-499-24960-0
  • The Wizard of Oz ( The Wizard of Oz ). Edition Phantasia, Bellheim 1999, ISBN 3-924959-53-6
  • Homelands of the imagination. Essays and Reviews 1981–1991 ( Imaginary Homelands ). Kindler, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-463-40155-X
  • Cross that line! Writings 1992–2002 ( Step Across This Line ). Rowohlt, Reinbek 2004, ISBN 3-498-05773-1

Others

  • Salman Rushdie played a guest role in the film Bridget Jones - Chocolate for Breakfast (2001) as a writer.
  • In the film Then She Found Me (USA 2007) he plays the doctor “Dr. Masani ".
  • In 1994 Dietmar Luz published the novel Fatwa - the verdict on Rushdie's life “in the underground”.
  • In the novel God's Little Warrior by Kiran Nagarkar , the reaction of a radical Islamist to The Satanic Verses is discussed, which leads to an attempted attack on Rushdie.
  • Salman Rushdie wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of the novel Midnight Children by Deepa Mehta .

literature

Web links

Commons : Salman Rushdie  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Salman Rushdie  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ parastatal enterprise Farhad Nomani, Sohrab Behdad: Class And laboratory in Iran . Syracuse University Press, Syracuse 2006, ISBN 978-0-8156-3094-4 , pp. 37 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  2. ^ Brian McHale, Randall Stevenson: The Edinburgh Companion to Twentieth-century Literatures in English . Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2006, ISBN 978-0-7486-2011-1 , pp. 234 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  3. ↑ Nicholas Shakespeare : Bruce Chatwin. A biography. P. 801.
  4. ^ A b Karen Armstrong : Muhammad. Founder of religion and statesman . P. 11 f.
  5. ↑ a b Karen Armstrong : Brief History of Islam . P. 219.
  6. ↑ Can Iran Be Trusted? ( Memento from January 16, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), Michael Rubin, AEI Middle Eastern Outlook, September 1, 2006 (English)
  7. ↑ a b Ayatollah revives the death fatwa on Salman Rushdie by Philip Webster, Ben Hoyle and Ramita Navai , The Times , January 20 , 2005 (English)
  8. ↑ Iran adamant over Rushdie fatwa , BBC NEWS, January 12, 2005 (English)
  9. ↑ Death threat has existed since 1989 - Foundation increases bounty for Salman Rushdie , article on RP Online (online edition of the Rheinische Post) from September 16, 2012
  10. ↑ Hans-Hermann Klare: "I think God is a ridiculous idea" In: stern.de.
  11. ↑ جایزه 600 هزار دلاری برای اعدام سلمان رشدی از سوی جبهه فرهنگی انقلاب. In: FARS Newsagency. Retrieved March 2, 2016 .
  12. ↑ Daniel Steinvorth: Four million for a killer. In: NZZ - Neue Zürcher Zeitung. February 24, 2016, accessed February 26, 2016 .
  13. ↑ Today in the feature sections: "Power and Powerlessness of Images". In: Spiegel Online . February 22, 2016. Retrieved February 23, 2016 .
  14. ^ Samuel Osborne: Iranian state media has put a $ 600,000 bounty on Salman Rushdie's head. In: independent.co.uk. February 21, 2016, accessed February 23, 2016 .
  15. ^ [1] Remise des insignes de Docteur Honoris Causa à M. Salman RUSHDIE
  16. ↑ 20 minutes : Salman and Padma - Divorce , July 3, 2007
  17. ↑ Time : A Heaven Without Virgins June 19, 2007
  18. ↑ IRNA : " British knighthood for Rushdie, clear sign of Islamophobia ( Memento of September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive )", June 17, 2007 (Eng.)
  19. Jump up ↑ Der Spiegel : Islamists Angry About Accolade For Rushdie June 20, 2007
  20. ^ Rushdie - Victims of Anger , Der Tagesspiegel , June 23, 2007, p. 1.
  21. ↑ Stern from January 20, 2012: Indian Literature Festival opened without Salman Rushdie ( Memento from May 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  22. ↑ The New Yorker , January 20, 2012: A Writer Under Threat, Again , accessed January 21, 2012
  23. ↑ "Rushdie said that he now believed the supposed plot - apparently undertaken by Mumbai criminal gangs - had been invented to keep him away from the festival and to avoid controversy", in: "Rushdie says Indian police invented death threat" , AFP (france24.com) January 22, 2012
  24. ↑ Laura M. Holson: From Exile to Everywhere . In: The New York Times , March 23, 2012. Retrieved August 10, 2012.
  25. ^ Salman Rushdie to Teach and Place His Archive at Emory University . Emory University Media Release, October 6, 2006. Retrieved August 10, 2012.
  26. ↑ Nils Minkmar: Under the sign of the crows on faz.net . Retrieved July 29, 2013.
  27. ↑ Thomas Steinfeld: In the light of the threat on sueddeutsche.de . Retrieved July 29, 2013.
  28. ↑ In the English original: “Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today. ”, Published in a press release on the day of the attack: Salman Rushdie condemns attack on Charlie Hebdo .
  29. ^ Iranian publishers despite official rejection in Frankfurt. Salman Rushdie, ostracized by Iran, appears at the book fair , deutschlandradiokultur.de , October 12, 2015
  30. ↑ John Mullan: Lives & letters, Where are they now? . In: The Guardian , Guardian Media Group, July 12, 2008. Retrieved November 29, 2012. 
  31. ↑ Rushdie wins Best of Booker prize , BBC News. July 10, 2008. Retrieved November 29, 2012.  }
  32. ^ Honorary Members: Salman Rushdie. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed March 20, 2019 .
  33. ↑ WDR (Westdeutscher Rundfunk) Kulturnachrichten from December 11, 2015: Salman Rushdie receives Mailer Prize for his life's work ( Memento from December 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  34. ^ Salman Rushdie - Freedom From Religion Foundation . In: fff.org .
  35. ↑ buchmarkt.de of October 14, 2019: WELT Literature Prize for Salman Rushdie , accessed on October 14, 2019
  36. ↑ Salman Rushdie and Barbara Miller receive 2019 Freethinker Award. Accessed November 18, 2019 .
  37. ↑ Herting in the VdÜ translator database , 2019
  38. ↑ In Frieling Verlag, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-89009-743-X .
personal data
SURNAME Rushdie, Salman
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rushdie, Sir Ahmed Salman (full name); سلمان رشدی (urdu)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British writer
DATE OF BIRTH June 19, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Bombay , India