Readers' Guides to Essential Criticism are designed for students of literature who want to explore the ever-increasing body of literary criticism relating to the authors and texts studied most frequently on university courses. The Guides offer a unique approach that fills a market gap - no other series includes a full narrative linking the extracts and giving guidance to students on how to approach the complex arguments of critical work. Since Midnight's Children (1981), Salman Rushdie has emerged as one of the twentieth century's most important writers. With The Satanic Verses (1988), Rushdie became arguably the most controversial author in the history of literature in English. Never before has a novel resulted in such acrimonious debate, political manoeuvring, and violence. So great is the controversy that 'The Rushdie Affair' has to a profound degree overshadowed both the literary merits of his works and the criticism that surrounds them. David Smale presents a clear and detailed introduction to some of the most stimulating responses to Rushdie, discussing literary affiliations, his treatment of history and nationhood, hybridity and language, gender, and of course the politics, and political consequences, of his fiction.