The Enchantress of Florence (38 page)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Vanessa Manko for her help in compiling the bibliography, and also for her invaluable assistance with the research for this novel, which was made possible, in part, by a Hertog Fellowship at Hunter College, New York. My gratitude, too, to my editors Will Murphy, Dan Franklin, and Ivan Nabokov; to Emory University; and to Stefano Carboni, Frances Coady, Navina Haidar, Rebecca Kumar, Suketu Mehta, Harbans Mukhia, and Elizabeth West. Also to Ian McEwan, with whom, many years ago, I improvised a song called “My Sweet Polenta.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

S
ALMAN
R
USHDIE
is the author of nine previous novels:
Grimus; Midnight’s Children
(which was judged to be the “Booker of Bookers,” the best novel to have won that prize in its first twenty-five years);
Shame
(winner of the French Prix de Meilleur Livre Etranger);
The Satanic Verses
(winner of the Whitbread Prize for Best Novel);
Haroun and the Sea of Stories
(winner of the Writers Guild Award);
The Moor’s Last Sigh
(winner of the Whitbread Prize for Best Novel);
The Ground Beneath Her Feet
(winner of the Eurasian section of the Commonwealth Prize);
Fury
(a New York Times Notable Book); and
Shalimar the Clown
(a Time Book of the Year). He is also the author of a book of stories,
East, West,
and three works of nonfiction—
Imaginary Homelands, The Jaguar Smile,
and
The Wizard of Oz.
He is co-editor of
Mirrorwork,
an anthology of contemporary Indian writing.

ALSO BY SALMAN RUSHDIE

FICTION

Grimus

Midnight’s Children

Shame

The Satanic Verses

Haroun and the Sea of Stories

East, West

The Moor’s Last Sigh

The Ground Beneath Her Feet

Fury

Shalimar the Clown

NONFICTION

The Jaguar Smile

Imaginary Homelands

The Wizard of Oz

Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction, 1992
–
2002

PLAYS

Haroun and the Sea of Stories
(with Tim Supple and David Tushingham)

Midnight’s Children
(with Tim Supple and Simon Reade)

ANTHOLOGY

Mirrorwork
(coeditor)

This is a work of fiction. A few liberties have been taken with the historical record in the interests of the truth.

Copyright © 2008 by Salman Rushdie

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

R
ANDOM
H
OUSE
and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:
SHAMSUR RAHMAN FARUQI
: Excerpt from a poem by Mirza Ghalib as translated by Shamsur Rahman Faruqi from the essay entitled “A Stranger in the City: The Poetics of Sabk-I Hindi.” Reprinted by permission of Shamsur Rahman Faruqi.
A. S. KLINE
: Excerpt from poem 90 from
The Canzoniere
by Petrarch, translated by A. S. Kline.
Reprinted by permission of A. S. Kline.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Rushdie, Salman.
The enchantress of Florence: a novel / Salman Rushdie.
p.                           cm.
1. Women—Mogul Empire—Fiction. 2. Women—Italy—Florence—Fiction. 3. Mogul Empire—Kings and rulers—Fiction. 4. Mogul Empire—Social conditions—Fiction. 5. Florence (Italy)—Social conditions—Fiction. I. Title.
PR
6068.
U
757
E
53 2008                                    2008000070
823'.914—dc22

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eISBN: 978-1-58836-758-7

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