On ‘Radio Times’: Salman Rushdie, over the rainbow
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Author Salman Rushdie poses for photographers at a book signing in London, Tuesday, June 6, 2017. (Grant Pollard/Invision/AP)
Novelist Salman Rushdie may be best known for his novel, “The Satanic Verses,” which forced him into hiding after Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against him. But that was decades ago and Rushdie has since written a number of acclaimed novels, children’s books, and essays.
Rushdie was a guest on Radio Times Thursday, talking with Marty Moss-Coane about his new novel, “The Golden House,” which centers on a wealthy immigrant family in New York and the secrets they are trying to hide.
The story is also political, beginning with Obama’s inauguration and ending with the Presidential election of a character called, The Joker.
The conversation was wide-ranging, from his novels and politics, to hate speech on college campuses and The Wizard of Oz. Rushdie is a big fan of The Wizard of Oz and wrote it in a New Yorker essay in 1992. He says it’s a classic immigrant tale about “someone coming to a strange land and having to make their way.” He told Marty about an interesting correspondence he had with one of the movie’s Munchkins.
Listen to the clip above.