Q&A with Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie is the author of eleven previous novels—Grimus, Midnight’s Children (for which he won the Booker Prize and the Best of the Booker),Shame, The Satanic Verses, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, The Moor’s Last Sigh, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Fury, Shalimar the Clown, The Enchantress of Florence, and Luka and the Fire of Life—and one collection of short stories: East, West. He has also published four works of nonfiction—Joseph Anton, The Jaguar Smile, Imaginary Homelands, and Step Across This Line—and co-edited two anthologies, Mirrorwork and Best American Short Stories 2008. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University. A former president of PEN American Center, Rushdie was knighted in 2007 for services to literature.

His newest book is Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, a spellbinding work of fiction that blends history, mythology, and a timeless love story.

In anticipation of the book, we were presented with an opportunity to ask Mr. Rushdie some questions about himself and his work. This interview can be found below.

MRB: You hold numerous honours, including memberships and professorships with many arts and intellectual institutions from all across the globe. In short, you're a person in strong demand in all corners of the world. How do you find the time to write?

Rushdie: I'm actually very good at defending my time, and pretty disciplined in my working habits. (Not that disciplined away from the desk.)

MRB: The title of your new book -- Two Years, 8 Months, and 28 Nights -- is a grounded, modernized play on the folkloric "1001 Nights". Is there a particular reason for such a precisely defined, elongated title?

Rushdie: The book's manner is inspired by the old "wonder tales," and when I worked it out I liked it that inside the famous, beautiful, symmetrical number (1001) there lay hidden another beautiful, shapely number (2 8 28).

MRB: Two Years is described as being "inspired by 2000 years of storytelling yet rooted in the concerns of our present moment". It sounds like the book has been a long-time coming. Is it a story you've been crafting slowly over the years, or an idea provoked by recent events?

Rushdie: Some of it has been with me for a while. Mr Geronimo, The Interest in the Jinn, and some of the stories within the story, such as the tale of Mr Airagaira and the construction of the machine without a purpose, and the story of "Quiet John." But of course it's also a vision of a quarrel between the rational and the irrational, and that has something to do with the world in which we presently find ourselves.

MRB: And lastly, because we have to ask: If you were coming into our bookstore, which sections would you browse? Which authors would you be looking for?

Rushdie: Right now I'm immersed in narrative nonfiction because I plan to teach a course in it at NYU next year. So you'd probably find me rummaging around works by Didion, Kapuscinski, Berendt, Orlean, Mailer, etc.

Thank you to Salman Rushdie for taking the time to respond to our questions, and to Penguin Random House of Canada for arranging the interview.

Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights is available now in paperback.