A British Indian novelist and essayist whose second novel, Midnight's Children (1981), won the Booker Prize in 1981. Much of his fiction is set on the Indian subcontinent. He is said to combine magical realism with historical fiction. His work is concerned with the many connections, disruptions and migrations between East and West.

His fourth novel, The Satanic Verses (1988), was the centre of a major controversy, provoking protests and death threats from Muslims in several countries and a fatwā issued by Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran in 1989.

Since 2000, he has lived in the USA.