The Satanic Verses
Readers rate it 3.8 (173 on Hardcover)
561 pages · Released Feb 22, 1989 · Penguin
Content report card
The Satanic Verses parent’s guide: what’s inside
What it offers
A note for parents
The Satanic Verses is an adult literary novel of substantial complexity, not appropriate for children or young teens. The book opens with a terrorist bombing and contains graphic violence, frequent strong language, sexual content, and disturbing psychological and spiritual themes that reflect mature preoccupations with identity, migration, and religious questions. While praised for its literary merit and imaginative power, it requires the maturity and reading sophistication of older teens or adults to engage responsibly.
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From the publisher
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “[A] torrent of endlessly inventive prose, by turns comic and enraged, embracing life in all its contradictions. In this spectacular novel, verbal pyrotechnics barely outshine its psychological truths.”—Newsday Winner of the Whitbread Prize One of the most controversial and acclaimed nove... #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “[A] torrent of endlessly inventive prose, by turns comic and enraged, embracing life in all its contradictions. In this spectacular novel, verbal pyrotechnics barely outshine its psychological truths.”—Newsday Winner of the Whitbread Prize One of the most controversial and acclaimed novels ever written, The Satanic Verses is Salman Rushdie’s best-known and most galvanizing book. Set in a modern world filled with both mayhem and miracles, the story begins with a bang: the terrorist bombing of a London-bound jet in midflight. Two Indian actors of opposing sensibilities fall to earth, transformed into living symbols of what is angelic and evil. This is just the initial act in a magnificent odyssey that seamlessly merges the actual with the imagined. A book whose importance is eclipsed only by its quality, The Satanic Verses is a key work of our times. Praise for The Satanic Verses “Rushdie is a storyteller of prodigious powers, able to conjure up whole geographies, causalities, climates, creatures, customs, out of thin air.”—The New York Times Book Review “Exhilarating, populous, loquacious, sometimes hilarious, extraordinary . . . a roller-coaster ride over a vast landscape of the imagination.”—The Guardian (London) “A novel of metamorphoses, hauntings, memories, hallucinations, revelations, advertising jingles, and jokes. Rushdie has the power of description, and we succumb.”—The Times (London)
Shelved under
- Fiction
- Unloveable Characters
- Strong Character Development
- A mix driven
- Diverse Characters
- Character driven
- Not Diverse Characters
- Identity
- literary-fiction
- long-read
- challenging
- reflective
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ISBN 9780670825370 · Penguin