Sir Salman Rushdie

I was born in Bombay, India, to a middle-class Moslem family. My paternal grandfather was an Urdu poet, and my father a Cambridge-educated businessman. At the age of fourteen I was sent to Rugby School in England. In 1964 my parents moved to Karachi, Pakistan, joining reluctantly the Muslim exodus - during these years there was a war between India and Pakistan, and the choosing of sides and divided loyalties burdened me heavily.I continued my studies at King's College, Cambridge, where I read history. After graduating in 1968 I worked for a time in television in Pakistan. I was an actor in a theatre group at the Oval House in Kennington and, from 1971 to 1981, I worked intermittently as a freelance advertising copywriter for Ogilvy and Mather and Charles Barker.A few things have happened in my life since then.