The Enchantress of Florence. Salman Rushdie
The Enchantress of Florence is a love story and a mystery – the story of a woman attempting to command her own destiny in a man’s world. It brings together two cities that barely know each other – the hedonistic Mughal capital, in which the brilliant emperor wrestles daily with questions of belief, desire and the treachery of sons, and the equally sensual Florentine world of powerful courtesans, humanist philosophy and inhuman torture, where Argalia’s boyhood friend ‘il Machia’ – Niccolò Machiavelli – is learning, the hard way, about the true brutality of power. These two worlds, so far apart, turn out to be uncannily alike, and the enchantments of women hold sway over them both.
But is Mogor’s story true? And if so, then what happened to the lost princess? And if he’s a liar, must he die?
But is Mogor’s story true? And if so, then what happened to the lost princess? And if he’s a liar, must he die?
“In the day’s last light the glowing lake below the palace-city looked like a sea of molten gold. ... Perhaps (the traveller surmised) the fountain of eternal youth lay within the city walls — perhaps even the legendary doorway to Paradise on Earth was somewhere close at hand? But then the sun fell below the horizon, the gold sank beneath the water’s surface, and was lost. Mermaids and serpents would guard it until the return of daylight”
About Salman Rushdie
Salman Rushdie is an Indian-born English novelist and critic, famous for fantastical novels about the post-colonial relationship between cultures of the East and West. Raised in India and Pakistan, he was educated in England and emigrated there in 1965. A graduate of Cambridge University (1968), Rushdie worked as an actor and in advertising until the success of his second novel, Midnight's Children (1981, Booker Prize), allowed him to work as a writer full-time. That novel cemented Rushdie's literary fame, but he became even more famous for the controversy stirred by his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses. Rushdie's depiction of Muhammad and other Islamic figures in the book offended some members of Islam, and the novel was banned in India soon after its publication. Iran's political and religious leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa on 14 February 1989, declaring that Muslims should kill Rushdie for defaming Muhammad and insulting Islam. The order was not rescinded by Iran until 1998, and Rushdie for many years avoided the public and had police protection when he travelled. After the publication of his novel, The Moor's Last Sigh (1995, Whitbread Prize), he became a public figure once again, and has since published novels, story collections and essays that challenge cultural conventions of both the East and the West. Despite decades of sharp criticism of the British government, Rushdie was made a Knight Bachelor in June of 2007 and is now referred to as Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie. The announcement of his knighthood rekindled the ire of strident Islamic groups in Iran, Pakistan and Malaysia. His other novels include Shame (1983), The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999) and Shalimar the Clown (2005).
