The Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie

Just before dawn one winter's morning, a hijacked jumbo jet blows apart high above the English Channel. Two figures fall to the sea, later washing up, alive, on a beach. It was an ambiguous miracle, for both seem to have acquired curious changes.

Both have been chosen as opponents in the eternal wrestling match between Good and Evil. n#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 nWinner of the Whitbread Prize n nOne 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. n nPraise for The Satanic Verses n nRushdie 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 n nExhilarating, populous, loquacious, sometimes hilarious, extraordinary . .

. a roller-coaster ride over a vast landscape of the imagination.--The Guardian (London) n nA novel of metamorphoses, hauntings, memories, hallucinations, revelations, advertising jingles, and jokes. Rushdie has the power of description, and we succumb.--The Times (London)n