“This is what loss was, what death was: an escape into the luminous wave-forms, into the ineffable speed of the light-years and the parsecs, the eternally receding distances of the cosmos.”

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.