Salman Rushdie Zia-ul-Haq. "Shame" won France's "Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger" (Best Foreign Book) and was a close runner-up for the Booker Prize. Both these works of postcolonial literature are characterised by a style of magic realism and the immigrant outlook that Rushdie is very conscious of as a member of the Kashmiri diaspora. Rushdie wrote a non-fiction book about Nicaragua in 1987 called "The Jaguar Smile". This book has a political focus and is based on his first-hand experiences and research at the scene of Sandinista political experiments. His most controversial work, "The Satanic Verses", was published in 1988 (see section
The Satanic Verses riot against the book in Pakistan, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Supreme Leader of Iran and a Shi'a Muslim scholar, issued a fatwa calling for the death of Rushdie and his publishers, and called for Muslims to point him out to those who can kill him if they cannot themselves. Although the British Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher gave Rushdie round-the-clock police protection, many politicians on both sides were hostile to the author. British Labour MP Keith Vaz led a march through Leicester shortly after he was elected in 1989 calling for the book to be banned, while the Conservative