Salman Rushdie is in the Race to Win the Nobel Prize in Literature

on Oct 06, 2022

Salman Rushdie, the Mumbai-born author of the Booker Prize-winning Midnight's Children,' is widely regarded as the favorite to win this year's Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday, according to the news agency PTI.

On Tuesday afternoon, 'The Guardian newspaper examined the betting odds and discovered that the lowest odds for Salman Rushdie winning were 13/2.

If the 75-year-old celebrated British American novelist wins, he will be the first Indian-born writer to win the prestigious award since Rabindranath Tagore in 1913 for 'Gitanjali.'

The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded by the Nobel Committee to the "person who has produced the most outstanding work in an ideal direction in the field of literature." "According to PTI, the award will be announced on Thursday.

Rushdie's prolific body of work includes the contentious 'The Satanic Verses,' which prompted a fatwa from Iran's former supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini.

The August 12 attack on New York-based Rushdie came 33 years after a religious edict calling on Muslims to assassinate the author over allegedly "blasphemous" writings "novel.

Hadi Matar, 24, has been charged with one count of second-degree attempted murder and one count of second-degree assault, both of which he has pleaded not guilty to.

According to the Nicer Odds aggregator, French authors Michel Houellebecq and Annie Ernaux, Canadians Anne Carson and Margaret Atwood, Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, and American Stephen King are among the favorites to win.

Abdulrazak Gurnah, a Tanzanian-born British novelist and academic, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2021 "for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents."