The postcolonial literary era that took shape in the years following World War II brought into English-language fiction a range of voices rooted in the histories and cultures of formerly colonized nations. Salman Rushdie, born in Mumbai in 1947, emerged as a novelist and writer working within that period, producing fiction and other forms of writing across a career that has extended into the present.

Rushdie holds citizenship in the United Kingdom, the United States, and India. His education took him through Cathedral and John Connon School in Mumbai, Rugby School in England, and King's College. In addition to his work as a novelist, the facts of his career encompass work as an essayist, screenwriter, actor, and children's writer. He has worked in English, Urdu, and Kashmiri.

His second novel, Midnight's Children, was published in 1981 and won the Booker Prize that same year. Another notable work in his body of writing is The Satanic Verses. These two titles represent the works most directly associated with his name in the literary record, with Midnight's Children carrying the distinction of a formally awarded prize.

The Booker Prize, received for Midnight's Children in 1981, stands as the most concretely documented honor in the available record of Rushdie's career. It was awarded for a novel that appeared early in his writing life and has remained the work most explicitly recognized by a major literary institution.