The Satanic Verses

First published in 1988, The Satanic Verses is a dazzling, shape-shifting novel about migration, faith, identity and the strange transformations that make us who we are. After surviving the explosion of an aeroplane over the English Channel, Indian actors Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha fall towards Britain, their bodies and destinies undergoing uncanny changes. From this extraordinary opening, Salman Rushdie unfolds a richly layered narrative of dreams, reinvention and cultural dislocation, moving between London, Bombay and imagined worlds shaped by religious history and popular mythology.

Both exuberant comedy and profound literary provocation, the novel draws upon Islamic tradition, Indian storytelling and the possibilities of magical realism to explore the tensions between belief and scepticism, exile and belonging, the sacred and the profane. Its intricate narrative and exuberant linguistic invention place it among the defining works of late twentieth-century literature. Awarded the 1988 Whitbread Prize for Novel of the Year, The Satanic Verses also became the centre of an international controversy over religion, censorship and freedom of expression, a history inseparable from its enduring literary significance.

From the book

“To be born again,” sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, “first you have to die.”

— Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses

On The Satanic Verses

“A thousand and one nights crammed into a week of evenings.”

— D. J. Enright, The New York Review of Books