Last updated on September 15th, 2026 at 10:17 pm
Salman Rushdie, the 79-year-old author and longtime U.S. citizen, is set to receive a National Book Award medal for lifetime achievement, one of the most prestigious honors given to American writers.
Rushdie, who was born in Mumbai and moved to England as a teenager, now lives in New York City with his wife, the writer Rachel Eliza Griffiths. In a recent Zoom interview, he said becoming a U.S. citizen gave him a stronger sense of belonging than he had felt before.
He compared that feeling to receiving the award and recalled that Raymond Carver once described himself as having arrived in literature after winning a major American honor. Rushdie said he may now be seen as part of American literature in a similar way.
Salman Rushdie is Receiving National Book Award
Key facts
- Rushdie is 79; born in Mumbai; moved to England as a teen; lives in New York City.
- He has been a U.S. citizen for about a decade.
- He is receiving a National Book Award medal for lifetime achievement.
- The ceremony is in November in Manhattan.
- Kiran Desai, a longtime friend and fellow Indian immigrant, will present the medal.
- Perri Klass will receive the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community.
- Rushdie has published more than 20 books.
- Midnight’s Children won the Booker Prize.
- The Satanic Verses led to worldwide protests and a fatwa from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
- Rushdie was stabbed onstage in 2022 at a literary festival in western New York.
- Hadi Matar was convicted of attempted murder and later of transnational terrorism and providing material support to Hezbollah.
- Rushdie later published the memoir Knife and the story collection The Eleventh Hour.
- Knife was nominated for a competitive National Book Award in 2024.
- An Alex Gibney documentary based on Knife is scheduled for release Sept. 17.
- Ruth Dickey praised Rushdie’s work for crossing borders, generations, and identities.
Novelist Kiran Desai, a longtime friend and fellow Indian immigrant, will present Rushdie with the medal at this fall’s National Book Awards ceremony in Manhattan. The event is scheduled for November.
At the same ceremony, the National Book Foundation will honor pediatrician and literacy advocate Perri Klass with the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community. Past recipients include Maya Angelou, Terry Gross, and Roxane Gay.
According to the foundation’s executive director, Ruth Dickey, Dolly Parton was offered the award several times but declined each time, saying she did not need the recognition. The report also stated that Parton died last month at age 80.
Rushdie has said he hopes to be remembered for his books. He has published more than 20, including Midnight’s Children, which won the Booker Prize and is often ranked among the greatest contemporary novels. He is also widely known for The Satanic Verses, whose references to the Prophet Muhammad led to worldwide protests and a fatwa from Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini calling for his death.
In 2022, Rushdie was stabbed repeatedly onstage during a literary festival in western New York. Hadi Matar was convicted by a state jury of attempted murder and by a federal jury of transnational terrorism and providing material support to Hezbollah.
Since then, Rushdie has published the memoir Knife and the story collection The Eleventh Hour. Knife was nominated for a competitive National Book Award in 2024 and is the basis for an Alex Gibney documentary of the same name, scheduled for release on Sept. 17.
Dickey praised Rushdie’s work, saying it celebrates literature’s power to shape narratives, bridge divides, and connect people across borders, generations, and identities. She noted that his fiction moves across real and imagined places and offers readers honest stories that span cultures, politics, and geography.
Rushdie describes himself as a city writer and sees his life as unfolding in three chapters: South Asia, London, and New York. The fatwa forced him into hiding for years and gave him a reputation for being reclusive, but he has remained a highly public and cosmopolitan literary figure.
He has said he was an immigrant writer in England and is now an immigrant writer in America, adding that American literature has long been enriched by writers from many different backgrounds.
