In his latest novel, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the author of "The Satanic Verses" offers an outlandish take on today's trash TV, opioid crisis and racism inspired by Cervantes' classic. Here's how critics see it.
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Salman Rushdie is renowned for integrating countless references to classical and contemporary culture in his works. His three latest novels directly pay tribute to classics of literature: His 2015 work, Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, is an homage to the collection of Middle Eastern folk tales One Thousand and One Nights; the novel that followed in 2017, The Golden House, refers to The Golden Ass by Apuleius, the only ancient Roman novel in Latin that survived in its entirety.
Now with Quichotte, published on September 3 in the US, the British Indian author of Midnight's Children and The Satanic Verses tackles Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote, known as the world's first modern novel.
Instead of being set somewhere in La Mancha, Rushdie's modernized version of the Spanish tale takes place in Trumpland, in "the Age of Anything-Can-Happen," and depicts the quest of an aging India-born traveling salesman who has fallen in love with a former Bollywood star who has meanwhile turned into a popular TV host. The man goes on a journey across the US to meet her.
The salesman and his imaginary son, Sancho, are fictional creations of "a mediocre writer of spy thrillers" called Sam DuChamp, who is also dealing with his own challenging mid-life crisis problems.
Salman Rushdie: A selection of works
As Salman Rushdie's latest novel, "Quichotte," is released in the US, here are some of the British Indian author's most famous works.
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'Quichotte' (2019)
"Quichotte" revisits Cervantes' classic, modernizing Don Quixote's quest by setting it in modern-day USA and following the quest of an aging traveling salesman. Racism, opioids and trash TV are part of the fable — as well as a number of surreal elements, from talking guns to shape-shifting humans. The novel was longlisted for the Booker Prize 2019.
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'Midnight's Children' (1981)
Rushdie's first novel, "Grimus," was overlooked when it came out in 1975. It's the British Indian author's second work that turned him into a literary star. "Midnight's Children," an allegory on India's independence, won the 1981 Booker Prize. It was also recognized twice as the "Best of the Bookers" — the public's favorite novel among all Booker winners for the prize's 25th and 40th anniversary.
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'The Satanic Verses' (1988)
Rushdie's name nevertheless remains most strongly associated with his fourth novel, "The Satanic Verses." Muslims felt that the controversial book mocked their faith; Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Supreme Leader of Iran, issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie's assassination. Even though the author came out of hiding after nine years, the now deceased Ayatollah's ruling still stands.
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'The Ground Beneath Her Feet' (1999)
Post-colonial culture and magical realism are Rushdie's trademarks, as well as countless references to world events, literature and pop culture, which he builds into works as diverse as "The Moor's Last Sigh" (1995), a family saga tackling a century of Indian history, or "The Ground Beneath Her Feet," an alternative history of modern rock music. A U2 song uses the title and lyrics from that book.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Dedert
'Luka and the Fire of Life' (2010)
Rushdie has also written two children's books. His fifth novel after "The Satanic Verses" — and the fatwa issued against him — was "Haroun and the Sea of Stories" (1990), an allegory on censorship and freedom of speech. Rushdie later wrote a sequel, "Luka and the Fire of Life," with his 13-year-old son in mind.
Image: Random House
'Joseph Anton: A Memoir' (2012)
Joseph Anton, chosen in tribute to writers Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekhov, was the pseudonym used by Rushdie while he was living underground. Written in the third person, Rushdie's autobiographical book covers the nine years he spent in hiding because of the fatwa. During that period, he divorced from his second wife and went through two more marriages that both ended after a few years.
Image: DW/H. Kiesel
'Two Years, Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights' (2015)
The number of days in the title of this book add up to refer to Scheherazade's tales of 1,001 Nights — and Rushdie's novel offers a plethora of stories as well. The year the book came out, the Frankfurt Book Fair invited him as a keynote speaker. Iran decided to boycott the event because of his participation.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Dedert
'Home' (2017)
Rushdie is also the author of works of non-fiction, collected in books such as "Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism, 1981–1991" (1992). In the picture above, he shows "Home," a 2017 book from the Vintage Minis series. An exploration of the concept of identity, it collects some of those essays, as well as excepts from his novel "Shame" (1983) and from his story anthology "East, West" (1994).
Shortlisted for the 2019 Booker prize, Rushdie's latest novel has nevertheless obtained mixed reviews. The New York Times critic feels Rushdie's formula is getting old. The Guardian writes that the exploration of our era's fusion of facts and fiction "is not uninteresting territory for a writer to delve into, but Quichotte is too restless and in love with itself to be anything other than a symptom of the malaise it laments."
On the other hand, Quichotte has been praised by The Sunday Times as "one of the cleverest, most enjoyable metafictional capers this side of postmodernism," while the starred appraisal of Kirkus Reviews describes it as "Humane and humorous. Rushdie is in top form, serving up a fine piece of literary satire."
Likewise awarding the novel a starred review, the Library Journal summarizes its verdict as follows: "This incisively outlandish but lyrical meditation on intolerance, TV addiction, and the opioid crisis operates on multiple planes, with razor-sharp topicality and humor, delivering a reflective examination of the plight of marginalized personhood with veritable aplomb. Highly recommended."
