British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie was addicted to superhero comics during his childhood. “I grew up with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Aqua Man,” said the 76-year-old.
He was connected to the Berliner Ensemble from the USA for the presentation of his new book “Victory City”. “I enjoyed all of this and it creeps in.” The superhero stories would also have fitted in with the Bollywood films that surrounded him in Bombay. “And these films are often not realistic, or naturalistic.”
The novel “Victory City,” published in April, is about the orphan Pampa Kampana, who creates a city in southern India. “In a way, I was tired of America. And I felt like I wanted to go home,” said the Indian-born writer, who currently lives in the United States. And so he immersed himself in the 14th century in southern India – that was as far away from America as it could be.
Rushdie became known in 1981 with the novel “Midnight Children”. In August 2022, Rushdie was stabbed by a man during a reading in the USA. He survived the attack but became blind in his right eye. “I’m feeling pretty good now, except for this eye,” he said.
The atheist has been persecuted by religious fanatics for decades. Because of the novel “The Satanic Verses,” the then Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini called for the writer to be killed in 1989.
