BookBanter Episode 40 with Salman Rushdie

Click on the episode title or photo to go to the interview.

Salman Rushdie is an author that most people know in one way or another.  He is the winner of the Booker Prize (what has been called the British equivalent of the Pulitzer), he has been appointed a Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II, and has had a fatwā issued against him for his book The Satanic Verses.  His latest book is Luka and the Fire of Life, a fantasy tale about a boy whose father is sick and it is necessary for the boy – Luka – to travel into a fantasy world and capture some of this “fire of life” to cure his father; but he is up against unbeatable odds: no one has ever made through this fantasy world and survived; no one has ever managed to capture the fire of life; and no one has ever made it back to the real world with the fire of life.  The book was written for his second son, after he originally wrote Haroun and the Sea of Stories, for his first son; they’d each asked for a story they could read and enjoy.

At a recent signing at the wonderful Kepler’s Books and Magazines, Rushdie took a moment to do an interview with BookBanter and Kaye Cloutman of the San Francisco Book Review. Angela from Kepler’s Books and Magazines also provided a question during the interview. Rushdie talks about how and why he became an author, the steps he needed to take to write a children’s fantasy novel, as well as some advice for writer’s living under oppression.

Many thanks to Angela and everyone at Kepler’s Books and Magazines for helping to organize the interview, and for being so accommodating. Also thanks to Jared Emerson-Johnson for cleaning up the interview and making it sound awesome.

“Luka and the Fire of Life” by Salman Rushdie (Random House, 2010)

Sir Salman Rushdie really needs no introduction, as one of the most renowned authors of the last thirty years after the success of Midnight’s Children and the  infamous Satanic Verses, he has gone on to delight and entrance readers across the globe.  In 1990 he published Haroun and the Sea of Stories for his first son who’d asked him to write him a book that he would enjoy.  Rushdie admits to needing to take time to find the right voice for a children’s fantasy book, but certainly achieved it with Haroun.  In Luka and the Fire of Life, he returns to some elements of Haroun, creating a new fantasy for his other son.

Luka is a young boy with a sick father who discovers that he must find the fire of life and bring it back to make his father well again.  He travels to a fantasy world where he meets with a strange man known as Nobodaddy, who is looking to take the last of Luka’s father’s life away, but Luka must use Nobodaddy as a guide in this world to find the fire of life.  He also befriends two very strange characters, who’ve escaped from a circus: a dog named Bear, and a bear named Dog.  Now he must cross into the different lands, besting whatever is there to stop him and end his quest, but this fantasy world is a little different, for it is like a video game, where he must gain lives, and each time he dies he loses them, as well as making it to each save point.

The problems for Luka are threefold: no one has ever made it to the mountain where the fire of life is; no one has ever managed to steal some of the fire of life; and no one has escaped from this world with the fire of life.  Luka seems to be up against unbeatable odds, while this Nobodaddy seems untrustworthy to say the least; the questions is whether he will be able to make it out alive with the fire of life to save his father in time.

CLICK HERE to purchase your copy from Bookshop Santa Cruz and help support BookBanter.

Originally written on December 21, 2010 ©Alex C. Telander.

Magical Realism Meets Video Games: An Interview with Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie is an author that most people know in one way or another.  He is the winner of the Booker Prize (what has been called the British equivalent of the Pulitzer), he has been appointed a Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II, and has had a fatwā issued against him for his book The Satanic Verses.  His latest book is Luka and the Fire of Life, a fantasy tale about a boy whose father is sick and it is necessary for the boy – Luka – to travel into a fantasy world and capture some of this “fire of life” to cure his father; but he is up against unbeatable odds: no one has ever made through this fantasy world and survived; no one has ever managed to capture the fire of life; and no one has ever made it back to the real world with the fire of life.  The book was written for his second son, after he originally wrote Haroun and the Sea of Stories, for his first son; they’d each asked for a story they could read and enjoy.

During our interview, he admitted to originally wanting to be an actor, then decided on becoming a writer, which was certainly not something that was easy for him, and took him many years to hone and perfect until he became a bestselling author with Midnight’s Children.  As for his use of magical realism in his work, Rushdie talked about his being raised on eastern culture, religion and mythology, and that in wanting to make his stories new and different from everything else, magical realism was an ideal fit.  Luka and the Fire of Life employs elements of video games, and while this book was written for his son – an avid gamer – Rushdie admitted to he and games not really getting along, other than fun apps on his Iphone.  The last time he and a video game had any sort of relationship was with the original Super Mario Brothers.

Salman Rushdie hopes readers first and foremost are entertained with an original story when reading his books, but while he doesn’t seek to use overbearing themes or messages in his work, he does hope readers will see something in his characters that will make them stop and think about themselves and their own lives.  As for what Rushdie is working on next, he doesn’t have any novels in the works, but is about a third of the way through what will likely be a fascinating memoir.

The audio interview with Salman Rushdie will be available on January 1st in Episode 40 of BookBanter.

You can read the full article here.

10/29 On the Bookshelf . . . “In Search of the Multiverse,” “Elegant Universe,” “Johnny Halloween,” “Bards of Bone Plain,” & “Luka and the Fire of Life”

A quintet from the Sacramento Book Review to review.  We some interesting science books: In Search of the Multiverse by John Gribbin (I have a book or book series idea for a scifi story about multiverses) and The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene; a short Halloween collection, Johnny Halloween by Norman Partridge; the new Patricia McKillip (who I’ve never read before), The Bards of Bone Plain, and finally Salman Rushdie’s Luka and the Fire of Life, whom I will hopefully be interviewing in early December.