Playing Hide and Seek with Names and Selves in Salman Rushdie’s Joseph Anton, A Memoir.

Abstract

The British government’s protection of Rushdie after Khomeini’s fatwa came at a cost: Rushdie was forced to change his name. Years later he tells the story of the secret life he led by revealing the names of his near and dear as if this restitution of reality would remake and reposition his self tossed between fantasy and fanaticism in a globalized world. Like Jhumpa Lahiri’s, Rushdie’s American experience has helped him find a creative way out of the drama of naming and identity he undergoes as a migrant writer.