“Many of us didn't believe in the image of bin Laden as a wandering Old Man of the Mountains, living on plants and insects in an inhospitable cave somewhere on the porous Pakistan-Afghan border.”

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.