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The Satanic Verses
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# The Satanic Verses "The Satanic Verses" is a 1988 novel by Salman Rushdie that blends magical realism with satirical storytelling, exploring themes of migration, identity, and religious belief through interconnected narratives. The book became a global flashpoint for debates about free speech and religious sensitivity when some Muslim leaders condemned it as blasphemous, leading to its banning in several countries and making it one of the most controversial literary works of the modern era.
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Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- literary work
- Author
- Salman Rushdie
- Country of origin
- United Kingdom
- Publisher
- Viking Press
- Followed by
- Haroun and the Sea of Stories
- Follows
- Shame
- Image
- Salman Rushdie, Satanic Verses -1988- illegal Iranian edition.JPG
- Significant event
- The Satanic Verses controversy
Show 7 more facts
- publication date
- 1988-09-00
- language of work or name
- English language
- nominated for
- Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel
- inception
- 1980-00-00
- title
- The Satanic Verses
- Commons category
- The Satanic Verses
- form of creative work
- novel
via Wikidata · CC0
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Encyclopedic overview
The Satanic Verses is the fourth novel from the Indian-British writer Salman Rushdie. First published in September 1988, the book was inspired by the life of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. As with his previous books, Rushdie used magical realism and relied on contemporary events and people to create his characters. The title refers to the Satanic Verses, a group of Quranic verses about three pagan Meccan goddesses: Allāt, Al-Uzza, and Manāt. The part of the story that deals with the satanic verses was based on accounts from the historians al-Waqidi and al-Tabari.
The book was a 1988 Booker Prize finalist (losing to Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda), and won the 1988 Whitbread Award for novel of the year. Timothy Brennan called the work "the most ambitious novel yet published to deal with the immigrant experience in Britain".
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “The Satanic Verses” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.