Rushdie, Salman |
Born 19 June 1947 (Bombay (now Mumbai), India) | Novelist who ruffled so many feathers in his native India with his novel 'Midnight's Children' that he was forced to leave the country. Clearly having learnt nothing from the experience, he went on to write 'The Satanic Verses' in 1988, which was critical of the Islamic faith. It resulted in rioting, book-burning, and Ayatollah Khomeini declaring a fatwa (effectively a death penalty) on his ass. He has been in hiding ever since, and the fatwa was reaffirmed by the new Ayatollah in early 2005. | |
| |