The Satanic Verses - SIGNED

Salman Rushdie (Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie)

ISBN 10: 0670825379 / ISBN 13: 9780670825370

Published by Viking / Penguin, New York, 1989

Fourth Printing of the U.S. Edition. Large 8vo. Pp. [x], 3-546, [4]. Quarter-bound black cloth over grey paper covered boards, lettered in gilt to spine; deckled fore-edge. Illustrated dustjacket, priced at $19.95 on the front flap, and featuring blurbs by Nadine Gordimer, Angela Carter, Victoria Glendinning, Bill Buford and Hyam Maccoby. Originally published by Viking in London on September 26, 1988, with the first U.S. edition by the same publisher following on February 22, 1989. Signed by Author to title page. Author's fourth novel. Winner of the 1988 Whitbread Prize for Fiction. Shortlisted for the 1988 Booker Prize (losing out to Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda). Gibreel Farishta, India's legendary movie star, and Saladin Chamcha, the man of a thousand voices, fall earthward from a bombed jet toward the sea, singing rival verses in an eternal wrestling match between good and evil. A whimsical and fantastic tale, as viewed through the prism of a magical realist lens. Its publication ignited an on-going debate on the dividing lines between freedom of expression, censorship, and religious tolerance. The book's reference to several verses that Satan allegedly tricked Muhammad into including in the Qur'an, and which were later expunged, as claimed by the controversial Arabian historian Ibn Ishaq, were the main source for the fatwa (religious edict) conferred upon Rushdie by Iran's spiritual leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini. It was officially lifted by his successors in September 1998 and the state-sanctioned reward nullified. Despite all this, Rushdie was repeatedly stabbed at the Chautauqua Institution in New York state on 12 August 1922, as he was about to deliver a lecture. He ruefully reflects on this attack which caused him to lose sight in his right eye, as well as the use of his left hand, in his 2024 memoir, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder. "Exhilarating, populous, loquacious, sometimes hilarious, extraordinary. a roller-coaster ride over a vast landscape of the imagination." -The Guardian. 919. Seller Inventory # 786 U74

Synopsis:

When a jumbo jet blows apart above the English Channel, Gabreel and Saladin are two who survive and are washed up on an English beach. However, it soon becomes clear that curious changes have come over them and that they have been chosen as protagonists in the eternal struggle between God and the Devil. Salman Rushdie is the author of "Midnight's Children", winner of the 1981 Booker Prize, and "Shame".

About the Author: Salman Rushdie is the author of fourteen previous novels, including Midnight’s Children (for which he won the Booker Prize and the Best of the Booker), Shame, The Satanic Verses, The Moor’s Last Sigh, and Quichotte, all of which have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize; a collection of stories, East, West; a memoir, Joseph Anton; a work of reportage, The Jaguar Smile; and three collections of essays, most recently Languages of Truth. His many awards include the Whitbread Prize for Best Novel, which he won twice; the PEN/Allen Foundation Literary Service Award; the National Arts Award; the French Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger; the European Union’s Aristeion Prize for Literature; the Budapest Grand Prize for Literature; and the Italian Premio Grinzane Cavour. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he is a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University. He is a former president of PEN America. His books have been translated into over forty languages.

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Satanic Verses - SIGNED
Publisher: Viking / Penguin, New York
Publication Date: 1989
Binding: Hardback
Condition: As new
Dust Jacket Condition: As new
Signed: signed
Edition: 1st Edition