NEW YORK (AP) — Salman Rushdie, a U.S. citizen for the past decade, is to receive a literary honor reserved for the elite of American writers — a National Book Award medal for lifetime achievement.
“Although I lived here for many, many years before I became a citizen and had a green card, citizenship suddenly made me feel a sense of being part of it (the U.S.) that was deeper than before. And I think there’s something similar about this (award),” said the 79-year-old Rushdie, a native of Mumbai (then Bombay) who emigrated to England in his teens and now lives in New York City with his wife and fellow author, Rachel Eliza Griffiths.
“I remember somebody told me that when Ray(mond) Carver got some major American award, he described himself as being ‘out there in literature now.’ And I thought, ‘Maybe I’m out there in American literature now,’” Rushdie added, speaking during a recent Zoom interview.
Longtime friend and fellow author (and Indian immigrant) Kiran Desai will present Rushdie his medal at this fall’s National Book Awards ceremony in Manhattan on Nov. 18, when prizes in five competitive categories will be handed out. Rushdie is the 39th winner of the award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, presented by the nonprofit National Book Foundation. And he is just the fourth born outside of the U.S., following Canada native Saul Bellow, Isabel Allende of Chile and Swedish-born Art Spiegelman.
At the November ceremony, the foundation also will honor the pediatrician-literacy activist Perri Klass, this year’s recipient of the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community. Previous winners include Maya Angelou, Terry Gross and Roxane Gay. One very famous promoter of books and literacy, Dolly Parton, was offered the award several times in recent years, but turned it down.
“She graciously declined each time saying that she didn’t need the recognition,” the foundation’s executive director, Ruth Dickey, told The Associated Press. Parton died last month at age 80.
Remember him for his books
Rushdie, asked if he thinks often about his legacy, invoked his late friend Martin Amis and said he’d like to leave behind a shelf full of books with his own name on it. Rushdie has published more than 20, including the Booker Prize-winning “Midnight’s Children,” often ranked among the greatest contemporary novels. Many will inevitably remember him for the 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses,” in which references to the Prophet Muhammad led to protests from Muslims worldwide and a fatwa from Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini calling for the author’s death.
Rushdie had appeared out of danger in recent years until he was stabbed repeatedly onstage in 2022, during a literary festival in western New York. A state jury found the assailant, Hadi Matar, guilty of attempted murder. A federal jury found him guilty of transnational terrorism and providing material support to Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group in Lebanon. Rushdie has since published a memoir about the attack, “Knife,” and the story collection “The Eleventh Hour.”
Rushdie’s one competitive National Book Award nomination came in 2024, for “Knife.” (“Midnight’s Children” and other earlier books were released before Rushdie was eligible.) “Knife” is the basis for an Alex Gibney documentary of the same name about the author that is coming out Sept. 17.
“Salman Rushdie’s sweeping body of work is a celebration of literature’s power to shape narratives, build bridges, and form connections beyond borders, generations, and identities,” Dickey said in a statement Thursday. “Rushdie’s novels and short story collections are set across real and imagined landscapes, and his writing thrives in its specificity—offering readers access to unflinchingly honest stories that are culturally, politically, and geographically varied.”
His life unfolds in three chapters
The author sees himself as a city writer and his life as a three-part story: South Asia, London and New York. The fatwa forced him into hiding for years and even gave him the reputation for being “reclusive.” But he is the most public and cosmopolitan of writers, at home in urban areas and large gatherings, inspired by the conflict, diversity and unpredictability of metropolitan areas.
Much of Rushdie’s work has been set outside of the U.S. — “Midnight’s Children” is one of the defining novels of postcolonial India, and “The Satanic Verses” is based in London and India, among other locations. But Rushdie says that being an “American” writer doesn’t mean only setting your books in this country. He places himself in a long tradition of immigrant writers, whether Bellow or such younger authors as Jhumpa Lahiri and Yiyun Li.
“I was an immigrant writer in England, and now I’m an immigrant writer in America,” he says. “American writers come from everywhere, right? … There’s a long list. There’s Vietnamese writers and African writers. And I think that’s been enormously enriching of American literature in my time.”