The ground beneath Salman Rushdie's feet is shifting. He emerged from his fatwa-induced state of siege last September, giving up his place as embattled champion of free expression in time to prepare for a mammoth publicity tour for his new book, released in April. The Ground Beneath Her Feet, in which Rushdie recasts the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice into the world of rock-and-roll, was supposed to be his claim to a piece of the vast American literary soil. It was supposed to be his chance to show the crowd of upstart South Asian writers what the master could do, and score a bestseller in the process.
Mirrorwork
But none of that has happened. Instead, Rushdie has ridden a brief wave of rave reviews that has not quite translated into blockbuster sales, leaving him now to occupy the uncomfortable position of a writer whose best work appears to be behind him. "He is a great writer, and earlier he was a greater writer," said Nina Mehta, a critic who reviewed Mirrorwork, Rushdie's selective anthology of Indian literature, for Newsday in New York.
With Mirrorwork, Rushdie effectively resigned from his position as ambassador from the imaginary homeland of South Asian literature. In the introduction to the book, excerpted in The New Yorker in 1997, he justified his decision to include only works written in English, with one exception, by arguing that South Asian literature in English was simply superior to any other South Asian language.
Having admitted on the same page that he reads only English, Rushdie unleashed a predictable torrent of criticism upon himself, and some of that ill-will has persisted. At a reading in Boston on his publicity tour for The Ground Beneath Her Feet, one indignant student pressed him to justify his comments, but he stood his ground, blaming the lack of good translations for the apparent poor quality of non-English South Asian literature. It is unclear, however, whether this controversy has affected the sales of the book, which has not quite lived up to expectations. Henry Holt, the American publisher, would not release exact sales figures, but spokeswoman Elizabeth Shreve said it has sold more than 100,000 copies, spending one week on The New York Times bestseller list.