Rushdie rediscovered
D.C.R.A. Goonetilleke SALMAN RUSHDIE: Second Edition
(London & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)
'A valuable and thorough reading of a
major contemporary novelist's writing.' - Professor Randy Boyagoda,
Ryerson University, Canada
Salman Rushdie is one of the most widely-studied and controversial
contemporary British authors. This revised and expanded new edition of
an established text explores all of Rushdie's fiction, non-fiction and
biographical writings to date. Considering the author's fiction as art,
in all its richness of significance and technique, D.C.R.A. Goonetilleke
examines the blend of autobiographical and historical elements and
analyses Rushdie's complex position as a migrant writer.
Salman Rushdie second edition features new chapters which discuss the
author's most recent novels, including Fury (2001), Shalimar the Clown
(2005) and The Enchantress of Florence (2008);
reviews Rushdie's texts in the light of recent research and critical
developments;
focuses on Rushdie as a novelist in the context of migration,
postcolonialism and globalisation;
covers the 'Rushdie Affair', indicating that the situation
surrounding The Satanic Verses is more intricate than simply 'freedom of
expression versus Islamic fundamentalism';
contains an updated Bibliography and helpful new Chronology to aid
study.
In surveying Rushdie's complicated writing career and the innovative
and, later, 'popular' nature of his art, Professor Goonetilleke provides
fresh and original readings of all of the writer's work. This lucid and
approachable study is an essential introduction to Salman Rushdie,
rendering a notoriously 'difficult' author accessible to students,
scholars and general readers alike. D.C.R.A. Goonetilleke is Emeritus
Professor of English at the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, and has
also held various academic posts in the UK and Europe. He is a
well-established critic of twentieth-century and postcolonial
literature, and the leading authority on Sri Lankan English Literature. |