Salman Rushdie / Paul Theroux

Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British and American novelist renowned for blending magical realism with historical fiction in works exploring East-West cultural connections, often set on the Indian subcontinent. His breakthrough novel Midnight's Children (1981) won the Booker Prize and was later named the Best of the Bookers. The Satanic Verses (1988) provoked a fatwa and global controversy, yet he persisted, earning knighthood in 2007 and surviving a 2022 stabbing attack.