In the scheme of the book I have undertaken to write, which treats in considerable detail the position of North African Muslim authors who have adopted French as their writerly language, the introduction of Salman Rushdie at the end makes us mindful of important similarities existing with Muslim authors born in Islamic communities elsewhere and writing in European languages. The situation of Maghrebian authors attempting in their writings to locate themselves in a space somewhere outside or apart from that of dominant religious, political, and social structures of Islamic and European countries, upon which they nevertheless draw and in the face of which they seek to preserve their singularity, translates fluently to a discussion of the Anglo-Indian Rushdie.

It is important that I locate myself in regard to Rushdie. The material in this chapter was essentially completed in substance in mid–1988, nearly a year before the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued his fatwa on Valentine's Day, 1989, decreeing the death of Salman Rushdie.