Shalimar the Clown : a novel / Salman Rushdie

Shalimar the Clown is a novel that brings together the fiercest passions of the heart and the gravest conflicts of our time into an astonishingly powerful, all-encompassing story. Max Ophuls' memorablelife ends violently in Los Angeles in 1993 when he is murdered by his Muslim driver Noman Sher Noman, also known as Shalimar the Clown. At first the crime seems to be politically motivated - Ophuls was previously ambassador to India, and later US counterterrorism chief - but it is much more. Ophuls is a giant, an architect of the modern world: a Resistance hero and best-selling author, brilliant economist and clandestine US intelligence official. But it is as Ambassador to India that the seeds of his demise are planted, thanks to another of his great roles - irresistible lover. Shalimar the Clown is a work of the era of globalization, intricately mingling lives and countries, and finding unexpected and sometimes tragic connections between the seemingly disparate. Shalimar the Clown is steeped in both the Hindu epic Ramayana and the great European novelists, melding the storytelling traditions of east and west into a magnificently fruitful blend - and serves, itself, as a corrective to the destructive clashes of values it scorchingly depicts.

English.