The novel that set the stage for his modern classic,The Satanic Verses,Shameis Salman Rushdies phantasmagoric epic

Omar Khayyam Shakil had three mothers who shared everything. They shared the symptoms of pregnancy, they shared the son that they all claim to have borne on the same night. Raised at their six breasts, Omar's mothers teach him to live a life without shame. And it is training that proves very useful when he leaves his mothers fortress and makes the fateful mistake of falling in love. For he finds himself an unwitting player in an ongoing duel between the families of two men one a celebrated wager of war, the other a debauched lover of pleasure living in a world caught between honour and humiliation, where a moment of shame could prove fatal.

Shameis every bit as good asMidnight's Children. It is a pitch-black comedy of public life and historical imperativesThe Times

Sir Salman Rushdiehas received many awards for his writing, including the European Unions Aristeion Prize for Literature. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 1993Midnights Childrenwas judged to be the Booker of Bookers, the best novel to have won the Booker Prize in its first 25 years. In June 2007 he received a knighthood in the Queens Birthday Honours.

A masterful combination of history, myth, art, language, politics and religion from this legendary writer.>