One of the most controversial and acclaimed novels ever written, The Satanic Verses is Salman Rushdie's best-known and most galvanizing book. Set in a modern world filled with both mayhem and miracles, the story begins with a bang: the terrorist bombing of a London-bound jet in midflight. Two Indian actors of opposing sensibilities fall to earth, transformed into living symbols of what is angelic and evil. This is just the initial act in a magnificent odyssey that seamlessly merges the actual with the imagined. A book whose importance is eclipsed only by its quality, The Satanic Verses is a key work of our times. (From Knopf Random Vintage Canada)

Salman Rushdie is a British-Indian writer currently living in New York. The Satanic Verses was a finalist for the Booker Prize in 1988. In 1989, the first supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, issued fatwa condemning anyone involved in the publication of The Satanic Verses to death. Rushdie was forced to go into hiding for about a decade as a result of threats to his life.

The Satanic Verses is Rushdie's fourth book. His other works include Midnight's Children and Shame. Midnight's Children won the 1981 Booker Prize and was made into a film by Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta. His latest books include the 2017 novel, Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, and 2021 essay collection, Languages of Truth.

On Aug. 12, 2022, at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York state, Rushdie was stabbed multiple times in the neck and torso as he went on stage to give a talk on artistic freedom. He survived, but he lost the sight in one eye and a hand is incapacitated. As of December 2022, he is still recovering.