Salman Rushdie was born in Bombay in 1947. He is the author of the award-winning novels Grimus (1975),  Midnight's Children (1981),  Shame (1983), The Satanic Verses (1988), Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990), The Moor's Last Sigh (1995), The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999), Fury (2001), and, most recently, Shalimar The Clown. He is also the author of two books of essays, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981- 1991, and Step Across This Line: Collected Non-fiction 1992 – 2002; of a collection of short stories, East, West (1994); and of a travel narrative, The Jaguar Smile (1987). He is the winner of, among others,  a Booker Prize, the Austrian State Prize for European Literature, and the Aristeion Literary Prize. He has received eight honorary doctoral degrees.