Sir Salman Rushdie, writer

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 21 December 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sir Salman Rushdie is a writer who has written over 20 books, seven of which have been nominated for the Booker Prize. In 1981 he won with his novel Midnight’s Children which also topped the polls for the 25th and 40th anniversaries of the prize, making it the most lauded novel in Booker history.

He was born in Bombay in 1947 and educated at Rugby School in Warwickshire. After studying history at the University of Cambridge he worked as a copywriter at various advertising agencies before publishing his first novel Grimus in 1975. His breakthrough came with Midnight’s Children and he was one of 20 writers named on Granta magazine’s inaugural list of Best Young British novelists alongside writers including Martin Amis and AN Wilson.

He attracted considerable controversy with his fourth novel the Satanic Verses which won the Whitbread Award and was shortlisted for the Booker. Some Muslims considered the subject matter blasphemous and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for the death of Salman and the publishers of the book. Salman spent the following decade in hiding under police protection.

In 2022 he was stabbed multiple times while on stage at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York. He had been invited there to talk about keeping writers safe from harm. He survived devasting injuries – including the loss of his right eye – and wrote about the attack and its aftermath in his memoir Knife.

That same year he was awarded a Companion of Honour for services to literature.

Salman is married to the poet and novelist Rachel Eliza Griffiths and they live in New York. He has two grown up sons and two grandchildren.

DISC ONE: Walk on the Wild Side - Lou Reed DISC TWO: Yeh Hai Bombay Meri Jaan - Mohammed Rafi and Geeta Dutt DISC THREE: Blowin’ in the Wind - Bob Dylan DISC FOUR: (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction - The Rolling Stones DISC FIVE: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me) - Whitney Houston DISC SIX: Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard - Paul Simon DISC SEVEN: Isn’t She Lovely – Stevie Wonder DISC EIGHT: For the Love of You, Pts. 1 & 2 - The Isley Brothers

BOOK CHOICE: Homer’s Odyssey (Translated by Emily Wilson) LUXURY ITEM: A bed with a mosquito net CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: For the Love of You, Pts. 1 & 2 - The Isley Brothers

Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Paula McGinley

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:07.0	My Christmas Mix is pure 90s festive nostalgia.
0:11.1	You know, the Christmas songs you listen to on repeat.
0:14.0	Ho!
0:14.3	Ho! Ho! No, no, no.
0:17.5	I'm all about the big hitting Christmas anthems.
0:20.4	Come on, guys. What about those tunes that really slay? It's Christmas kitchen disco season, surely. Give me hip-hop Christmas bangers every day. Those Christmas tracks that are straight out of lapland. Get all kinds of Christmassy. Just search Christmas music on BBC Sounds. Hello, I'm Lauren Levern and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast from BBC Radio 4.
0:40.6	Every week, I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island.
0:48.0	For rights reasons, the music's shorter than on the original broadcast, but you can find a version with longer music tracks on BBC Sounds.
0:55.4	Listeners will also get access to episodes 28 days earlier than everyone else.
0:59.8	I hope you enjoy listening.
1:00.7	Music My castaway this week is the author Sir Salman Rushdie. His literary talent and his tenacity
1:29.1	have earned him global success. He has published more than 20 books and his many awards
1:33.8	include a knighthood for services to literature and the Booker Prize, which he won for his
1:38.5	1981 novel Midnight's Children. It also topped the polls for the 25th and 40th anniversaries of the prize,
1:45.6	making it the most lauded novel in Booker history. Like the book's hero, he was born in Bombay
1:51.1	in 1947. His stories are in the fabulous tradition of the Arabian Knights tales his father
1:56.7	told him while he was growing up. It was in 1989, following the publication of his novel
2:02.2	The Satanic Verses, that his life took on the epic proportions of one of his stories. Iran's
2:08.0	supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini declared a fatwa, an order to kill its author and anyone
2:13.8	involved in its publication. riots and a series of horrifying attacks followed.
2:19.0	The book's Japanese translator was murdered
	...

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