Salman Rushdie on Love, Sex, Writing, Friendship. What Else Is There?

Emory University posted a video of writer-in-residence Salman Rushdie talking with Chris Hitchens about various subjects. If nothing else, I want to have this somewhere I won't lose it so I can view it when I get a chance. In the meantime, check it out. Feel free to share what you think.

Midnight's Children Arise From Slumber

This was a bit of a surprise to me. Salman Rushdie, best known as the writer who had a death sentence placed on his head by Islamic leaders, was honored once again for writing the book considered the best of the Man Booker Prize winners. It's not for his Satanic Verses, which was the one that pissed off the imams, but rather for Midnight's Children, which won the Booker Prize in 1981.

I've read Satanic Verses and have another of his books in a stack, but I've not read Midnight's Children. What surprises me is not that this book has won so many prizes but that the Emory University press release (Rushdie is a writer-in-residence there) can't do simple math. It notes that "at least half of the voters are under the age of 35, therefore not yet born when Rushdie wrote the novel." I'm sorry, it's been a while since the Reagan and Thatcher administrations, but not quite that long; 1981 is only 27 years ago. You'd think that, since the Booker Prize has only been around for 40 years, such math would have been easier.

Regardless, my congratulations to Salman Rushdie. I think I'll need to read your book