The writer had no idea his novel would unleash such anger and become a litmus test of freedom of expression
When Salman Rushdie wrote his novel The Satanic Verses in September 1988, he thought its many references to Islam might cause some ripples.
“I expected a few mullahs would be offended, call me names, and then I could defend myself in public,” Rushdie would tell an interviewer much later.
Continue reading...The critically acclaimed writer rose to fame in 1981 and later received death threats for The Satanic Verses
Sir Salman Rushdie has been attacked and stabbed in the neck while appearing at an event in New York.
Here is a timeline of his controversial, critically acclaimed career:
Continue reading...In forthcoming memoir, obtained by the Guardian, former adviser claims to have made hugely consequential intervention
In a forthcoming memoir, Jared Kushner says he personally intervened to stop Donald Trump attacking Rupert Murdoch in response to the media mogul’s criticism, at the outset of Trump’s move into politics in 2015.
In the book, Breaking History, Kushner writes: “Trump called me. He’d clearly had enough. ‘This guy’s no good. And I’m going to tweet it.’
Continue reading...In a memoir obtained by the Guardian, former campaign manager risks embarrassing powerful rivals with description of apology
Donald Trump made an uncharacteristic apology to Ted Cruz after insulting his wife and father during the 2016 campaign – only for the Texas senator still to refuse to endorse Trump at the Republican convention.
In a new memoir, Trump’s then campaign manager, Paul Manafort, writes: “On his own initiative, Trump did apologise for saying some of the things he said about Cruz, which was unusual for Trump.”
Continue reading...Ghostwritten book, with interviews conducted mostly during ‘peak rage’, expected to be published by end of year
The manuscript is, reportedly, written; the ink now dry. Publication is said to be on course to capitalise on the lucrative Christmas market.
Few crumbs, if any, of the contents of the Duke of Sussex’s much-anticipated memoirs have so far emerged. “It’s juicy, that’s for sure,” one source told the Page Six website, with another adding: “There is some content in there that should make his family nervous.”
Continue reading...John Kelly, who Kushner and wife saw as ‘consistently duplicitous’, ‘showed his true character’ in hallway incident, memoir says
While chief of staff to Donald Trump, the retired general John Kelly “shoved” Ivanka Trump in a White House hallway, Jared Kushner writes in his forthcoming memoir.
The detail from Breaking History, which will be published in August, was reported by the Washington Post.
Continue reading...Bailey’s book on Philip Roth was pulled after former students said he abused them
The author of a Philip Roth biography that was taken out of print by its original publisher last year after allegations that he raped multiple women and groomed his former middle school students for sexual encounters when they were older is gearing up to publish a book billing itself as a warning tale of so-called cancel culture.
Blake Bailey’s latest work is scheduled to be printed by the controversial Skyhorse Publishing, which picked up his Roth book and an earlier memoir after WW Norton took it out of print and pledged to donate money to sexual abuse organizations equaling the advance it had paid to the biographer.
Continue reading...Politicians and chefs pay tribute to the ‘Indiana Jones of food’, who helped preserve and popularise Mexican recipes in the English-speaking world
Diana Kennedy, the British-born food writer who dedicated her career to promoting the richness and diversity of Mexico’s culinary heritage and helped to popularise the national cuisine in the English-speaking world, has died aged 99.
The Mexican culture ministry confirmed Kennedy’s death at her home in Michoacán and paid tribute to her legacy, saying that she, “like few others”, understood that conserving nature and its diversity was crucial to upholding the myriad culinary traditions of Mexico.
Continue reading...Book prize judges have praised ‘ethical precision’ of Melburnian’s second novel, a poised unpacking of the horrors of institutional failure
Jennifer Down missed the call telling her she’d won the Miles Franklin. She was in a hotel room on a Zoom call for work, and rang back later with no idea of the news waiting for her. “I was quite speechless,” she tells Guardian Australia. “I was so shocked.” We get that a lot, the chair told her dryly.
Bodies of Light is the Melbourne writer’s second novel. Her debut and subsequent short story collection saw her named best young Australian novelist by the Sydney Morning Herald in 2017 and 2018, and she’s been awarded several fellowships. But the 31-year-old is still processing the “immeasurable impact” of the $60,000 prize – the country’s richest literary award, alongside the Stella – on her writing life. It goes deeper than book sales and overseas readers, though both are now likely.
Continue reading...The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time author said his choice was ‘pretty instant’ after the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade
Author Mark Haddon is to donate all future royalties from US sales of his bestselling book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time to the National Network of Abortion Funds.
Haddon made the announcement on his Twitter and Instagram accounts, saying that from now until the supreme court’s “overturning of Roe v Wade is reversed, or some equivalent action is taken” he would be donating all US royalties from the book.
Continue reading...Contestants will enter a writers’ retreat and be given 30 days to write a novel while completing ‘live-wire’ challenges
Reality TV producers have exhausted singers, dancers, drag artists, potters, tailors, and beautiful young people hoping to find love. Now, it seems, the spotlight has fallen on writers. This week, a call has appeared on social media for contestants to apply to be on the pilot of a new show called America’s Next Great Author (ANGA).
Billed as “the groundbreaking reality TV show for writers”, ANGA will give its contestants one minute to pitch their novels to a panel of judges that includes New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds, Fox5 TV presenter Angie Goff, and stage writer and comedian Marga Gomez.
Continue reading...Kazuki Takahashi found in snorkelling gear floating in the sea off coast of Okinawa, reports say
A Japanese artist who created the hit manga comic series Yu-Gi-Oh!, which spawned a worldwide media franchise including a trading card game, has been found dead in the sea, according to media reports.
Kazuki Takahashi, 60, whose real first name was Kazuo, was discovered wearing snorkelling gear and floating in the sea near Nago, in the southern island prefecture of Okinawa, early on Wednesday and identified a day later, the NHK public broadcaster reported.
Continue reading...Author of Manon Bradshaw detective series was diagnosed with a brain tumour three years ago
The novelist and former Guardian journalist Susie Steiner, known for the Manon Bradshaw detective series, has died aged 51.
A tweet posted from her account on Sunday said: “Susie died yesterday after being diagnosed with a brain tumour three years ago. She lived with her illness with courage and good humour. She was much loved and will be much missed.”
Continue reading...Courtroom battle looms as author argues her book revealing inspiration for character became basis of an American novel
Two authors are to go head to head in the high court in London this week in a bitter literary plagiarism row that revolves around the love life one of the most romantic of all heroines, Lara Antipova from the Russian epic Dr Zhivago.
British author Anna Pasternak, a descendant of the Russian author of the original novel, will argue in court that substantial sections of her own factual account of the real-life inspiration for the character of Lara have since been copied and exploited in an American novel.
Continue reading...Glastonbury makes me revel in my sprung mattress from where I can watch RMT boss Mick Lynch dressing down media pundits
Hurrah! After an enforced three-year hiatus (there was this pandemic thing – I can’t get into it now) Glastonbury is back! The older I get, the more I love this music festival of music festivals, its noise, its mud, its people. The knowledge that I don’t have to endure any of it gets sweeter with every passing year. The sheer Jomo of it all far outpaces the delights of birthdays (they start to pall once you’re past seven and I’ve had 40 of them since then) and even Christmas (so much work now that I have a child of my own and can’t slip into a mimosas-bellinis-prosecco stupor over the course of the day).
Continue reading...A self-published novel by Michael Winkler joins Alice Pung, Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Michelle de Kretser and Jennifer Down to compete for $60,000
A self-published book has been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin for the first time in the award’s 65-year history, with Michael Winkler’s cult hit Grimmish clearing the final hurdle before Australia’s most prestigious literary prize is announced on 20 July.
Announced on Thursday evening, Grimmish joins Michael Mohammed Ahmad’s The Other Half of You, Michelle de Kretser’s Scary Monsters, Jennifer Down’s Bodies of Light and Alice Pung’s One Hundred Days to compete for the $60,000 prize.
Continue reading...Robertson might be tiny but for poet and schoolteacher Peter Ramm, it is the secret weapon that helped him win the UK’s biggest prize for unpublished poetry
Robertson is a small, pretty town perched on the edge of the New South Wales southern highlands, almost teetering on the escarpment that falls away to the Illawarra and Shoalhaven coasts.
It is most famous as the home of The Big Potato – an appropriately tuber-shaped concrete monolith on the main street – and a triumphant rugby league team called the Spuddies.
Sign up to receive Guardian Australia’s fortnightly Rural Network email newsletter
Continue reading...Australian author denies he is a plagiarist and says he has been ‘influenced by the greats’ of literature
The Australian novelist John Hughes, who last week admitted to “unintentionally” plagiarising parts of a Nobel laureate’s novel, appears to have also copied without acknowledgment parts of The Great Gatsby, Anna Karenina and other classic texts in his new book The Dogs.
The revelation of new similarities follows an investigation by Guardian Australia which resulted in Hughes’ 2021 novel being withdrawn from the longlist of the $60,000 Miles Franklin literary award.
Continue reading...Exclusive: The Dogs by John Hughes withdrawn from $60,000 prize after novelist admits he used parts of nonfiction work of Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich ‘without realising’
Australia’s most prestigious books prize, the Miles Franklin literary award, has pulled The Dogs by John Hughes from its 2022 longlist, a day after Hughes apologised for plagiarising parts of the work of a Nobel laureate “without realising” in his acclaimed novel.
Following a Guardian Australia investigation that uncovered 58 similarities and instances of identical text between parts of Hughes’ 2021 novel The Dogs and the 2017 English translation of Svetlana Alexievich’s nonfiction The Unwomanly Face of War, Hughes apologised to Alexievich and her translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky “for using their words without acknowledgment”.
Continue reading...Two previously unseen short stories by Jackson, rated by Stephen King as one of the great horror fiction writers, are to appear in US magazine the Strand
Two previously unpublished short stories by Shirley Jackson, the queen of gothic fiction, have been released.
Charlie Roberts and Only Stand and Wait were both published on 9 June in Strand magazine, a US-based print magazine that publishes short fiction and interviews.
Continue reading...