Rushdie's latest: A blend of Florence and Mughals

NEXT CHANCE: Rushdie's latest is a historical novel set in Renaissance Florence and the court of the Mughal Empire.

Featured Blog

Rajdeep Sardesai

Maharaj or Dada, Ganguly's legacy lives on

Featured Slideshows

New York: Salman Rushdie's new novel The Enchantress of Florence will be published in June, Random House has announced.

A historical novel set in Renaissance Florence and the court of the Mughal Empire, the novel follows the tale of a woman trying to command her own destiny in man's world, the publisher's note says.

Bombay-born Rushdie, 60, knighted last year by the British Queen, is best known for his controversial novel The Satanic Verses (1988), which outraged many Muslims and prompted death threats that forced him to live in hiding for nine years.

Rushdie shot to fame in 1981 when his second novel, Midnight's Children, a magical-realist exploration of Indian history, won the Booker Prize.

Currently a 'Writer in Residence' at Emory University in Atlanta, US, Rushdie is in the middle of a divorce from his fourth wife, Indian American actress and cookbook author Padma Lakshmi.

He was recently reported to be dating Star Wars actress Carrie Fisher. Rushdie has given a cameo appearance in the film Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), and now will be seen in a brief role of a gynaecologist-obstetrician in Helen Hunt's Then She Found Me.