“Like everybody else, I've had relationships in which I was passionately in love but was completely miserable all the time and didn't trust the person I was in love with one inch.”

British novelist and essayist, born 1947. His fiction explores identity, colonialism, and cultural displacement through intricate, genre-blending narratives. Known for works like *Midnight’s Children* and *The Satanic Verses*, which sparked global controversy.