Salman Rushdie is a Booker Prize winner, a leading postcolonial literary figure and a prominent activist for freedom of speech.

Rushdie is currently president of the PEN American Center and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was also a founder and first President of the International Parliament of Writers.

Rushdie's 1981 novel Midnight's Children won the "Booker of Bookers" prize in 1993, as the best book to win the Booker prize within its first twenty-five years. Rushdie's work has been awarded many other major literary awards, including the Whitbread Prize, the Writer's Guild Award and the Aristeion Prize. He is a Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres of the French Republic.

Rushdie's most recent novel is Shalimar the Clown. Among his other books are Shame (1983), The Satanic Verses (1988), Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990), and The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999).

Rushdie's family was forced into Pakistan because of religious intolerance in 1964, and this theme has pursued him throughout his career. After the 1988 publication of The Satanic Verses, Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a death sentence for Rushdie that has since been renewed. Rushdie is an active supporter of English PEN's recent "Free Expression is No Offence" campaign. According to Rushdie, "Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself."

Salman Rushdie lives in New York City.

Recent articles

openDemocracy presents the second of a series of audio features from the PEN World Voices literary festival. Two giants of south Asian culture, the Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen and novelist Salman Rushdie discuss democracy, migration and identity.

openDemocracy presents the first of a series of audio features from the PEN World Voices literary festival. Salman Rushdie, Orhan Pamuk and Margaret Atwood discuss power, shame and saying the unsayable.

“The moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.” Salman Rushdie sounds the call for a new enlightenment.

President Bush has rallied his troops for what he calls “The first war of the 21st century”. What is your view of this crisis, where, briefly, do you stand? This is the question we are putting to people around the world, especially those with their own public reputation and following. Our aim, to help create a truly global debate all can identify with.

See also "Writers, artists and civic leaders on the War: Part II"