The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

One of the most controversial and infamous books of modern times

No book in modern times has matched the uproar sparked by Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, which earned its author a death sentence. Furor aside, it is a marvelously erudite study of good and evil, a feast of language served up by a writer at the height of his powers, and a rollicking comic fable. The book begins with two Indians, Gibreel Farishta ("for fifteen years the biggest star in the history of the Indian movies") and Saladin Chamcha, a Bombay expatriate returning from his first visit to his homeland in 15 years, plummeting from the sky after the explosion of their jetliner, and proceeds through a series of metamorphoses, dreams and revelations. Rushdie's powers of invention are astonishing in this Whitbread Prize winner.

Salman Rushdie

Reviews

“ 'A staggering achievement, brilliantly enjoyable' Nadine Gordimer ”

“ 'A masterpiece' Sunday Times ”

“ 'A novel of metamorphosis, hauntings, memories, hallucinations, revelations, advertising jingles and jokes. Rushdie has the power of description, and we succumb' The Times ”

“ 'Damnably entertaining and fiendishly ingenious. One of the very few current writers whose works are attempts at the great Bible, "the bright book of life" ' London Review of Books ”

“ A great novelist, a master of perpetual storytelling. ”

V S Pritchett

“ A rollercoaster ride over a vast landscape of the imagination. ”

The Guardian

EBook

9781409058854

August 1, 2011

Vintage Digital

560 pages
Online retailers
Paperback

9780963270702

March 6, 1998

Vintage

560 pages

RRP $26.99
Online retailers
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