Quichotte by Salman Rushdie
In Quichotte, internationally bestselling author Salman Rushdie – who previously won The Booker in 1981 for his second novel, Midnight’s Children – has created a dazzling Don Quixote for the modern age. The book is a tour-de-force that is both homage to an immortal work of literature and a modern masterpiece about the quest for love and family. It’s described by The Times as ‘a triumphant assault on the coarsened American sensibility…[A] packed, funny, melancholy masterpiece of a novel'.
Speaking of his shortlisting, 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.’
Bea Hemming, Acting Publishing Editor for Jonathan Cape, and editor for Quichotte, said: ‘Salman Rushdie is one of our greatest living storytellers, and no stranger to the Booker Prize of course. But it is a particular joy to see him shortlisted again for this, his fourteenth novel. Quichotte is a work of dazzling ingenuity, tenderness and wit; it is both a satire and a love story, a playful homage to Cervantes and an urgent book for our times. It shows a master storyteller at his most exuberant and inventive, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to see it recognised by the Booker judges.’