Chapter 10 - Salman Rushdie and History

Summary

This chapter explores the wider context of Salman Rushdie’s engagement with the process of writing history and how his novels respond to specific cultural and historical moments to reveal the complex public debates around the status of history into which Rushdie intervenes. Because Rushdie studied history at university, it is not surprising that his work is deeply embedded in discussing historical thinking and historiography. This is especially related to the history of colonialism and India’s struggle for independence, as well as notions and experiences of migration. In addition he challenges western conceptions of historiography and revisits the Mughal and medieval Islamicate world in ways that explicitly emphasize connections from Persian texts to European intellectual thought. And in many of his novels, including Midnight’s Children, Shalimar the Clown, and The Enchantress of Florence, he consciously plays with how history is produced.