If you consider yourself an avid reader, the name Salman Rushdie should be a familiar one for you. Some of the best Salman Rushdie books have been awarded the biggest honours of the literary world. Salman Rushdie or Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie, popularly known for his work for Midnight’s Children or the unconventional writing in the Satanic verses, has many more famous literary works to his name. If you explore some of the Salman Rushdie books in greater depth, you may find traces of magical realism mingled with fictional history which is the major genre of his work.
Salman Rushdie is an Indian origin British novelist, who completed most of his education in England. Even though religion played an important role in his upbringing, his work has been criticised to be offensive to Islam. He has also won many awards and accolades for his work including the Booker Prize, the Best of the Booker, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and many more literary honours. Salman Rushdie books have been translated into many languages worldwide and have found a diverse audience. If you too are looking for some of the best works of Salman Rushdie, you are at the right place!
1.The Satanic Verses:
The Salman Rushdie book “The Satanic Verses”, written in 1988, sparked quite a lot controversies all over the world. The book is said to be inspired by the life of the prophet Muhammad. The novel tells a story of two men Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha and their miracle rescue from the hijacked plane. This ended up in the miraculous transformation of the Farishta into an archangel Gabriel and Chamcha into a devil. While they returned to their daily lives after the transformation, the book discusses what life was like for them, and the issues that they faced. Their struggles included struggles against the world as well as against each other.
This Salman Rushdie book becomes even more interesting when the author talks about a series of dreams which are closely linked to the main narrative of the book of divine revelation, devotion, fundamentalism and inhibitions in one’s mind.
The book presents a very critical view of religion and its teaching. However, the author tries to maintain the sanctity of the said religion, by talking about the teachings and their true meaning in the holy book. The book will give you a very peculiar perspective of its religious philosophy and will make the reader indulge in the exercise of thinking, instead of just passively reading the views of the writer.
2. Midnight’s Children
The book by Salman Rushdie is in its true sense a beautiful amalgamation of the sparkling and the dark side of a nation’s making. The writing style of this particular Salman Rushdie book is, without a doubt, utterly moving and highly impactful. It is considered to be one of the most iconic books of the 20th century.
The book is a tale of a boy, Saleem Sinai, who happened to be born right at the stroke of midnight on the day when India attained independence. And with that, Saleem became one of the 1001 children born at the same hour, bestowed with some extraordinary talent. Saleem, the protagonist of the story, has a psychic connection with all the other 1001 children.
The story is the boy’s inseparable destiny with the destiny of the nation, which was born at the same time. This book will take you through all the events, right from the colonial era to each and every important event after independence. It covers all the relevant things which happened in the 31 years after India attained nationhood. The intricacy of the book lies in how it’s narration will sail you through all the vivid joys and the painfully dark side of the story in almost a similar manner. The book is wrapped in a wonderful story of a simple yet strong character.
3. Quichotte
Out of all the Salman Rushdie books, Quichotte is his latest novel and is sure to bring some new point of view inspired by an old classic Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes’ in the seventeenth century. The present story is being told with the plot of the 21st century. It is a book where a story tells a story. In the story, an unsuccessful author of spy thrillers, Sam Duchamp, is trying to write a story of Ismail Smile, who is a pharmaceutical salesperson. Ismail is obsessed with television and he has a special obsession with a particular TV reality show host who goes by the name Salma. He starts writing love letters to her under the name Quichotte and decides to go after her to pursue her, along with his son Sancho, to confess his true love.
What unfolds next is the story of the man and the son’s encounter with contemporary issues like racism, the opioid epidemic and the impact of popular culture during his search in the United States. As the story progresses, it is clear that the life destiny of the author and his character are entwined.
The author has very well portrayed a man’s journey for his quest by almost questioning his moral and spiritual values. It is clear from the fact that most of the characters in the book share an Indian origin and their journeys to new countries, their memory of their beloved nation, and the radical changes happening around the world. Maintaining his typical style of writing Rushdie has again peeked into a human’s deep longing, desires and their consequences in a way no other writer could have.
4. Haroun and the sea of stories
This novel is a children’s classic which can also be called a bed-time storybook for children of varied age. This Salman Rushdie book was a very different genre if you think about the kind of books he generally writes. The story is set in Indian Subcontinent and is an allegory to call attention to the social taboos persistent in the society. It is an interesting story of a boy Haroun and his father Rashid, who is a storyteller and their journey through the sea to restore the power of storytelling and their fight with all the enemies. The book also elaborates the challenges faced by the father-son duo in pursuing their mission.
This Salman Rushdie book makes for a fun read for children. Creative character names, exciting humour and witty dialogues will keep the children engaged throughout the story. The book is written from the perspective of the child, which is what makes it even more interesting. Haroun’s point of view gives a very simple way for the children to connect and relate with the story and learn.
Contrary to Rushdie’s prolific writing style, this book is an easy read with language and concepts that can be easily understood by children. And it is also very much suitable for adults, who can draw out some deeper inspiration from the fantasy, which also proves to be an adventurous story.
5. Shame
Shame is Rushdie’s third book in the order of all the Salman Rushdie books, which he wrote after Midnight’s children. This book is in itself a quality collection of multiple emotions, fears, and expectations of a being a human being. Keeping the central theme of the novel as ‘Shame’ and ‘Shamelessness’, the author weaves the characters through a certain series of events. Even though there are many characters in the story, the story mainly focuses on Omar, who is raised by three women. Out of the three women, one of them is his biological mother but that is never revealed to him or the world. They keep the boy away from the world for a while and only let go when he wants to explore the world and eventually become a doctor, as the story progresses.
The other character who is given due importance in the story is Sufiya, who could not grow mentally beyond the age of nine due to a severe fever at the time of birth. It is the story of how she becomes the ‘Shame’ for her family and how the torture that she suffers turns her into a beast. This shame also leads her to commit violence in the latter part of the story.
These two stories start simultaneously, and progress as the two lead characters meet, only to face a very traumatic turning point in the story. The book also covers the events of classic politics and rivalry and its impact on each and every character.
This book is about how a society clasps a human’s mind to make it stand between the extremes of honour and humiliation. The society brings them to a point where the human’s mind goes down to the levels of committing heinous crimes and violence just as an act of revenge for being treated in a torturous manner.
6. The Enchantress of Florence
This Salman Rushdie book includes some real historic characters and some fantasy characters, which truly portrays the author’s talent of creating a book with the art of blending the best of both worlds. This book covers the story of a European traveller presenting himself in great Mughal Emperor Akbar’s court, as his relative. He claims that he was born to Babar, that is Akbar’s grandfather, youngest sister and an Italian war hero. As the book progresses, the reader realizes that there are parallel stories going on in two distant cities of the world. These parallel stories taking place in the cities of Fatehpur Sikri and Florence completely align with each other up to a point.
This story is very diverse. It is a tale of women enchanting the world with their presence, and it is a tale of women trying to make her voice heard in a man’s world. Who wins? That is what the author wants us to infer from our understanding of the story and this is why he leaves us thinking about it.
The story has shown elements of beliefs, needs, treachery and the ruthlessness of power in a very quintessential manner. When the East and the West meet in the book, there are fireworks everywhere. After reading this book, you will surely agree that there is so much to elucidate from a simple piece of work written which gives the book a unique strength of its own.
7. Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights
Rushdie’s tremendous talent as a writer that includes the art of mixing history and myth into a fabulous story is beyond questionable. This book is written in the times when war ensued between the humans and evil Jinns as a slit opens for them to enter our world. The dark jinns take over the world and decide to destroy the human race. Then comes a warrior princess in the story who brings with her a great amount of love and care towards the human race, which she has developed through a connection. The brave women stand with an army to fight against the powerful jinns.
This book is a collection of one story revealing another story and one tale opens up after the other in a very irresistibly smooth manner. This book is written in a rather simple comic-style with the idea to portray the distinction between the forces of the good and bad.
The varied emotions of human beings are all very well power-packed inside the story making it an interesting read. While reading it, you will be repeatedly questioned about the presence of light and dark within you and the courage with which the author presents it to us is something that tells us how good he is.
8. The Golden House
The Golden House is a Salman Rushdie book written in 2017. The novel is set in the cities of Bombay and New York. The book begins with Barack Obama’s election-tie and ends eight years post that, on an election-eve where a contender refers to himself as ‘the joker’. The writer beautifully describes the many bubbles of the US from the perspective of a person who never had the luxury of personally living in one. The book also leaves the readers with the idea that there is no escaping destiny, however hard one may try.
This book is said to be the return of Rushdie towards writing on realistic subjects with very compelling writing. It is a modern epic of love, terrorism, and reinvention among the loss we feel. In a very flamboyant and courageous way, the writer brings the focus of the readers on the story of the book. The Golden House is tailor-made for any reader who is searching for an elaborate and splendidly written piece of work about immigration and affirmation.
9. Imaginary Homelands
Imaginary Homelands is a collection of essays, seminar papers, articles and reviews written by Salman Rushdie. The topics in this Salman Rushdie book range from political and social issues to elements with literary subtexts. The reader tends to have a personal and subjective reaction to this book. It is not a book that can be read with any degree of detachment. The book is intellectual, eloquent and lively.
Each reader may perceive the book differently. “Human beings do not perceive things whole; we are not gods but wounded creatures, cracked lenses, capably only of fractured perceptions. Partial beings, in all the senses of that phrase.” The writer mainly questions his ‘existence’ as he has been always a migrant. A Muslim in India, an Indian in Pakistan and then, a brown man in Britain. He considers migrating as a process of translation, in which some things are carried forward and some are left behind, lost in translation. It is that gap caused by translations that is beautifully reflected in his writing.
10. The Moor’s Last Sigh
The Moor’s Last Sigh is a Salman Rushdie book which was initially published in 1995 and is again a story set in two different cities of India, Bombay and Cochin. The book is filled with varied heterogeneous characters through which the writer invokes the Indian belief of ‘unity in diversity’. The protagonist, Moor, courts “the tragedy of multiplicity destroyed by singularity, the defeat of Many by One”. The book is the epic telling of India’s middle passage as a country.
The book is also the story of the narrator Moraes Zogoiby, referred to as Moor throughout the entire book. It includes many of his life’s tragedies of being deformed by birth, the actions of his family where his roots lie, and the love of his life deceiving him into a foul play, all of which affect him for a lifetime. The writing style of the book is a mixture of funny, ambitious, compassionate and satirical writing. The author’s powerful writing holds all the characters and the events together to make it a surreal read for every reader.
11. Fury
Fury, which was published in 2001, is the seventh novel among all of the Salman Rushdie books. The book depicts globalization and its tragic flaws with New York as the epicentre of all the events and happenings. The book brings about a great grasp of the human tragicomedy, its absurdities, horrors, and dimensions. The writer’s ideas about culture, society, and politics are deeply embedded in the writing style in the book.
It is a story of a man who has everything he could want, success, fame, money, and everything else. Despite that, he is stuck on the darkest side of human behaviour and understands how a man is forced to confront his demons in order to ultimately escape them. The reader will get to see the phases of human behaviour, where achieving everything can take a person to the highest joy and the deepest part of a human heart. The author has presented an impactful deep peek into the explosive yet pitiless dark comedy that is human life.
12. Shalimar the Clown
Shalimar the Clown is another gem in the collection of Sulman Rushdie books which was written in 2005. The book derives its name from the Shalimar Gardens in Srinagar, India. It’s the story of Maximilian Ophuls, America’s counterterrorism chief, one of the makers of the modern world; his Kashmiri Muslim driver and subsequent killer, a mysterious figure who calls himself Shalimar the clown; Max’s illegitimate daughter India; and a woman who links them, whose revelation finally explains them all. The book has an epic narrative that moves from California to Kashmir, France, and England, and back to California again.
The book tells a story about how simple lives are wrecked by some external factors like that of politics and propaganda. It also throws light on how such demons can lead a simple human into doing something that the human could have never imagined he would. This interesting read reveals one layer at a time by rewinding each story and taking turns to connect the different links of the story to make it a page-turner.
13. The Ground Beneath Her Feet
The Ground Beneath Her Feet is the sixth Salman Rushdie book in the order of all the Salman Rushdie books and was published in 1999. It’s based on the Orpheus/Eurydice myth, with rock music replacing Orpheus’s lyre. In this book about crossings, disappearances, earthquakes, and metamorphosis, the readers are made to bounce between stoic, realistic acceptance and the anguished Promethean aspiration.
It is a story of a famous singer Vina Apsara who was caught in an earthquake and was never seen again. Ormus Cama is her lover who finds her, loses her, seeks her, and finds her over and over within a period of time. This romance is narrated by a photographer Rai, who is a childhood friend of Ormus and has also been Vina’s lover. While narrating their story the narrator lets some deepest secrets of his life slip, which include many of his failings and his longings. He also talks about how he crossed all the hurdles and lived to tell this tale.
Rushdie has created this novel with a very gripping plot which portrays the cracks and tears present in the reality around us. The book is one of his boldest imaginative work with a vision of our shaken times and engages the reader with the truth of what is and what might be.
Conclusion
After reading about all the Salman Rushdie books in our list, we can surely agree that he is a very dynamic writer who has not only stuck to one domain throughout his writing career but has tried a variety of writing styles for different audiences. Whether you are starting to read new authors and are at the beginning of your reading journey, or you have been a fan of any of the Salman Rushdie books, make sure you get your hands on all of them, because each of them is a gem of its own. You can also explore more writings by Indian authors here and check our which Salman Rushdie book made it to the best books of the 20th century!