I didn't want to become some embittered old hack getting his revenge for the rest of my life. And I didn't want to become some scared creature cowering in a corner. I remember telling myself not to carry the hatred around, although I know where it is. I have it in a trunk in storage.

Though he enjoys writing Salman Rushdie says that he would have become an actor if his writing career had not been successful. S. "In the South.

He is said to combine magical realism with historical fiction; his work is concerned with the many connections disruptions and migrations between East and West. In 2008 The Times ranked him thirteenth on its list of the fifty greatest British writers since 1945.