I grew up in a family in which there was very little religion. My father wasn't religious at all. But he was really interested in the subject of, you know, the birth and growth of Islam. And he basically transmitted that interest to me.

My father decided that he was such a admirer of Ibn Rushd's philosophy, thinking that he changed the family name to Rushdie. I realized why my father was so interested in him, because he was really an incredibly modernizing voice inside our Islamic culture.

The novel does not seek to establish a privileged language but it insists upon the freedom to portray and analyze the struggle between the different contestants for such privileges.

I became a writer because I got addicted to story. The first storyteller in my life was my father.

Sometimes legends make reality, and become more useful than the facts.

Believe in your own eyes and you'll get into a lot of trouble, hot water, a mess.

Sometimes writing a novel is not unlike having a baby. You'd have to ask a female novelist to compare the pain.