Salman Rushdie's Quichotte in race for Booker

The news of the shortlist broke this afternoon with an announcement from the organisers of one of the leading literary awards in the English-speaking world. Quichotte is published in India by Penguin Random House India, making it the only nominee by an Indian publisher in this year’s shortlist, a statement mailed to UNI here by the publisher said.

This book is published under the Hamish Hamilton imprint in India and was simultaneously released in the UK and India on August 29.

Inspired by the classic Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, Quichotte is one of the most anticipated books of 2019 and opened to exceptional reviews from the media. It is the fourteenth novel from the prize-winning author.

In it Rushdie tells the tale of an ageing travelling salesman who falls in love with a TV star and sets off to drive across America on a quest to prove himself worthy of her hand. Quichotte’s tragicomic tale is one of our deranged times and deals, along the way, with father-son relationships, sibling quarrels, racism, cyber-spies and the end of the world.

Commenting on the nomination, Salman Rushdie said, ‘It has been nineteen years since The Moor’s Last Sigh made it to the shortlist, so I’m obviously delighted. I'm also happy to be chosen, alongside such terrific writers, to be part of an interesting, strong list.’

Meru Gokhale, publisher of Penguin Press, Penguin Random House India, said, ‘In Quichotte, Salman Rushdie has again caught the zeitgeist by writing a novel that engages hilariously and meaningfully with the absurdities of the contemporary world, taking in pop culture, TV soaps, America’s opioid crisis, giants of world literature and much more besides. Quichotte offers moments of pure pleasure for every reader. We are delighted to be Salman Rushdie’s publisher, and not surprised that he is once more in line for the Booker Prize for Fiction.’

Salman Rushdie's Midnight’s Children won the Man Booker Prize, the Booker of Bookers Prize and the Best of the Booker Prize. He has also published one collection of short stories and four works of non-fiction, including the internationally acclaimed bestseller, Joseph Anton and has co-edited two anthologies.

He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University. A former president of PEN American Center, Rushdie was knighted in 2007 for services to literature. His books have been translated into over forty languages, the statement said.

The shortlist for 2019 Booker Prize for Fiction also includesThe Testaments by Margaret Atwood, Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak – all published internationally by Penguin Random House. For 2019, the judges’ panel is chaired by Peter Florence, director of the Hay Festival, and consists of former fiction publisher and editor Liz Calder, novelist and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo, writer and broadcaster Afua Hirsch and pianist and composer Joanna MacGregor.

The winner of the Booker Prize will be announced on October 14.