Salman Rushdie was born in 1947 in Bombay, India, later moved with his family to Pakistan, and eventually settled in England.  His multicultural background gave him a unique understanding of the immigrant identity and the sense of cultural displacement many colonial British subjects experienced in the period following the dismantling of the empire—especially the diaspora, those of Indian descent who migrated to Britain or other countries. Rushdie’s migratory experience engendered in him a fascination with multiplicity, cultural diversity, and hybrid identities that would later dominate his fiction.
	In 1967 he received an M.A. with honors from King’s College, Cambridge, and moved to London, where he worked in acting and advertising.