Product Details

• Actors: Salman Rushdie
• Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Kultur Video
• DVD Release Date: July 25, 2006
• Run Time: 45 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: B000G1ALKM
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #146,322 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

A fascinating documentary that presents the story of the writer's life, and examines the social and political events that influenced their works. Salman Rushdie (1947-), a British novelist of Indian descent, is most noted for his book The Satanic Verses (1988) which was banned in several Islamic countries.

Born in Bombay (near Mumbai), India, Rushdie was educated at the University of Cambridge. His early publications include the novels Grimus (1974), Midnight’s Children (1981), and Shame (1983), in which he employed fantasy and dreams in a surrealistic style. Midnight’s Children won the Booker Prize in 1981 and was an unexpected critical and popular success.

Rushdie also wrote a report on his travels to Nicaragua, The Jaguar Smile (1987), and in 1990 his children’s book Haroun and the Sea of Stories was published. In 1995, Rushdie’s collection of short stories East, West appeared. The Moor’s Last Sigh, also published in 1995, is a novel about the last surviving member of a brilliant multi-ethnic Indian family that traces its lineage to the last Moorish sultan of Granada, Spain.

The Satanic Verses, a novel combining fantasy, philosophical ruminations, and comic aspects, was well-received, but it also aroused the ire of many Muslims, who considered it an attack on the Koran, Muhammed, and the Islamic faith. As a result of demonstrations, India, Pakistan, South Africa, Egypt and Saudi Arabia banned the work. In 1989, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini declared that Rushdie should be put to death, and Khomeini’s followers offered a bounty, which reached $5 million, for Rushdie’s death. Although Rushdie offered an apology and a formal statement of his adherence to Islam, the bounty was not lifted, and he remained in hiding until late 1991, when he began to make isolated and unscheduled appearances and to allow a few interviews. In 1995, despite the continuance of death threats, Rushdie began making television appearances, granting more frequent interviews, and giving public readings of his works.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rushdie, A Cosmopolitan Man of Letters, February 19, 2007

By	Stavros K (Nicosia, Cyprus) - See all my reviews

This documentary is definitely worth having as it is very well made and replete with interesting treatments of various aspects of Salman Rushdie's work but also personality. Rushdie's good humour and spirited interaction are well known and while a large part of the documentary is the author speaking and reading excerpts from his books, it is never boring. We also see him in conversation with various literary personalities, as well as Bono from the popular group U2. There are a number of interviews which form great highlights. Writers Paul Auster, Marina Warner and Anita Desai, Bill Buford, the literary editor of The New Yorker (he was the first to publish an excerpt from Midnight's Children), and Hanif Kureishi, author and screen writer, they all make engaging and informed comments on Rushdie and his work and offer easy access to the politics in his books. (I would really prefer English subtitles instead of dubbing over Marina Warner's French.) The footage that provides visual background to some parts of the documentary makes a surprisingly interesting composition: the sky during a flight, the urban landscape of New York City, Indian countryside and cities, people of the Indian subcontinent, and protests against The Satanic Verses. The documentary also makes certain musical choices that combined with the skyscrapers and the rides in a limousine in New York add a cosmopolitan flair that certainly exists in Rushdie himself. Overall, this is an enjoyable, engaging, and very informative documentary on one of the greatest contemporary authors.