The first novel by writer Salman Rushdie, Grimus, not found in French, will be reissued for the literary season, announced Gallimard editions on June 12. This novel published in 1975, when the author was 28 years old, was translated by JC Lattès editions in 1977. It has never been republished since. It must come out in pocket, at Folio editions, on August 24, with the same translation, by Maud Perrin. “Grimus” is a fantastic tale about a man endowed with immortality, Wandering Eagle, who after more than seven centuries seeks to get rid of this gift. This first work had little success and even went unnoticed by literary critics. Salman Rushdie will only be recognized with his second novel, “The Midnight Children” (1981), which will obtain the Booker Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial.
From Salman Rushdie appeared on September 6 Victory City (Editions Actes Sud, translated by Gérard Meudal), his 15th novel, published in English in February. This American-British of Indian origin has lived since 1989 under the threat of a fatwa issued by Iran after the publication of his book The Satanic Verses.
Target in August 2022 of an assassination attempt while giving a conference in Chautauqua, in the northeastern United States, he lost the use of one eye and one hand. And despite this handicap, he courageously continues his work, faithful to what he declared in 2006 to American students: “Don’t follow the leaders. Focus instead on the eccentrics who persist in walking out of line.”
