In 2007, he began a five-year term as Distinguished Writer in Residence at Emory University. In June 2007, he was appointed a Knight Bachelor for 'services to literature', which 'thrilled and humbled' him. Faced with death threats and a fatwa (religious edict) issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Supreme Leader of Iran, which called for him to be killed, he spent nearly a decade largely underground, appearing in public only sporadically.

His fourth novel led to some violent protests from Muslims in several countries. His style is often classified as magical realism, while a dominant theme of his work is the story of the many connections, disruptions and migrations between the Eastern and Western world. Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie, a novelist and essayist, set much of his early fiction at least partly on the Indian subcontinent. The Satanic Verses (1988), novel of Indian-born British writer Salman Rushdie led Ruholla Khomeini, the ayatollah of Iran, to demand his execution and then forced him into hiding his other works include Midnight's Children (1981), which won the Booker prize, and The Moor's Last Sigh (1995).

The enchantress of florence themes