Midnight's Diaspora

A distinguished collection of intellectuals, writers and public figures provide fresh insights into the complex political and cultural meanings of Salman Rushdie's writing—and the celebrated writer responds. Twenty years after Ayatollah Khomeini declared a fatwa against him, Salman Rushdie remains the world’s most controversial and perhaps most famous living novelist. Far more than an acclaimed author, Rushdie is a global figure whose work is read and studied by a wide variety of constituencies—both for its extraordinary literary achievement and for the insights it affords into the most significant political debates of our time. This important collection of essays and interviews brings together a distinguished group of critics and commentators, including Rushdie himself, to explore the political and cultural contexts of Rushdie's novels— Pakistan, India, Mumbai, exile and the many milieux of Islam. While the two substantial interviews with Rushdie illuminate his thoughts on literary and political subjects that he has for the most part been reluctant to discuss in public, each of the essays offers a distinct and often highly original take on Rushdie and his work. This combination of fresh perspectives and historical and political context will appeal to a wide array of readers interested not only in Rushdie's own work but also in the many contentious political issues it raises.