On Oct. 7, Sir Salman Rushdie came to the Busch Student Center’s Wool Ballroom to receive the 2009 Saint Louis Literary Award.
Rushdie, when asked about the award, commented that he is proud to be added to the “impressive list of people who went before,” a list that includes such literary luminaries as Tennessee Williams and Tom Wolfe. Following the presentation of the award, Rushdie sat down for a discussion with Saint Louis University Professor Joya Uraizee.
He spoke on the difficulty of writing about India while living in London, and about the surprise he felt when an Indian women stood up at a reading and said “I want to thank you Mr. Rushdie, you have told my story.” When asked about the themes of his writing, he talked at length about culture, surrealism and separation. He considers himself an “urban novelist” and a “writer of big cities.”
His first book for the younger set, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, was based off his first son. Rushdie’s newest children’s book, which will be released sometime next year under the title Luca and the Fire of Life, is based off of his second child from his third marriage.
In order to model his children’s book, Rushdie looks to stories such as Alice Through the Looking Glass for examples in which the main character is based off of an actual child.
Following his discussion with Uraizee, Rushdie answered questions from the audience. His novels have frequently been referred to as “magical realism,” and when asked what he would do with a chance to inject magical realism into his own life, he replied that the response was “not fit for such a family audience, but it would probably involve Angelina Jolie.”
In all, though, the questions took on a very serious tone-Rushdie stressed the importance of literature as a truth-teller, and said that “serious literature has its purpose [in] the unfolding of truth,” as well as the perils of building barriers between peoples. He stressed the shock that he felt as a 14-year-old, leaving a divided India for Europe, only to find similar divisions occurring between Soviet and non-Soviet countries.
Following the talk, freshman Mary Bast said that Rushdie was “very fascinating, witty and all-around entertaining.”
After his book signing, Rushdie had one final thought to offer SLU students: “As a Yankees fan, I just want to say I’ll see the Cards in the World Series!”
