Indian-born British-American author Salman Rushdie has been named Companion of Honour, an exclusive club of 65 members honoured for their services to the arts, science, medicine, and government. Rushdie is leading the list for his longstanding services to literature.  

The announcement was made yesterday, with Rushdie being named a member of Queen Elizabeth's Birthday Honours list. The group comprises 40 professionals and community champions of Indian-origin who will be honoured at the Platinum Jubilee celebrations of Queen Elizabeth II's 70 years of service to the UK. 

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Facts, Fabulism, and Fantasy: Salman Rushdie’s Quichotte

Rushdie won the Booker Prize for his 1981 novel, Midnight's Children, a magic realist story set in the Partition of India. The novel was voted Best of the Bookers twice, in 1993 and 2008. In 2007, Rushdie was knighted for his services to literature. His controversial novel, The Satanic Verses, brought him a fatwa Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989. A writer of both fiction and nonfiction, with 13 novels published and his books translated to over 40 languages, Rushdie's latest novel, the 2019 Booker-shortlisted Quichotte, spins Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote into the story of an Indian-American travelling across America. His latest nonfiction, Languages of Truth (2021), collects Rushdie's essays and speeches written over the years. 

Past recipients of the Companion of Honour award include British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, among others.