Annotating Salman Rushdie

‘Salman Rushdie’s remarkable novels are profuse and profligate in their use of literary references, mythological allusions, cinematic citations, private jokes, and public declamations. To all of this add his protean cultural archive, his multilingual voice, and insights on an infinitely expanding world. Vijay Mishra’s courageous and careful book delves deeply into Rushdie’s echo chamber of associations and annotations and provides us with a crucial study of the postcolonial text as figured through Rushdie’s creative genius.’

Homi K. Bhabha, Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities, Department of English, Harvard University, USA

‘No future commentator on Rushdie's works will dare not cite [this volume] ... this super maha-bhashya … I must say that in this work [Vijay Mishra] has made the postcolonial do what no other postcolonial critic has the scholarly equipment to even dream of doing. This act is in a class by itself.’

Harish Trivedi, former Professor of English, University of Delhi, India

‘Calvino wrote, "What stirs literature is the call and attraction of what is not in the dictionary." Yet Vijay Mishra has produced no less than a dictionary of a great writer’s imagination, a combination OED and Hobson-Jobson of the private, pop-cultural, interlinguistic, and serendipitous connotations of Salman Rushdie’s wonderful word-universe. What a feast!’

Neil ten Kortenaar, Professor and Director, Centre for Comparative Literature, University of Toronto, Canada

‘Annotations and their uses are given a lucid examination, primarily in the development of four key novels of Salman Rushdie. The cryptic, the post-colonial, the hybrid and the love and play of words are deciphered in expert fashion, while inviting us to re-read and annotate Rushdie for ourselves. Vijay Mishra is no less than masterful in this respect.’

Rajin