Not a lot to say here, as it was a very straightforward idea.
I’ve read all of Salman Rushdie’s novels. I wouldn’t go back to Fury or The Enchantress of Florence, which felt like he was merely running on the spot. More recent books, such as Victory City and especially Quichotte have felt like a return to form.
It’s common enough to read critics saying that he has never matched Midnight’s Children, but I would nominate The Satanic Verses as his best. I recall finishing it for the first time on the day of the fatwa, and feeling faintly relieved not to have to carry the big navy-blue hardback around. (Back then, kiddies, there were no such things as e-books.) I reread it last year and I think it balances the realism and the magic realism the best of all his books.
And in the middle of the rereading up popped this splendid quote offering an immediate idea. Except I promptly found that there were relatively few shortish words meaning ‘information’ – so the grid edged down to 11×11. This was also more useful for centring a hidden surname with an odd number of letters!
The quote was not in any reference book (not yet, anyway, that I could find), but it was readily and accurately available online. I decided to hand it to solvers by including it verbatim in redundant words in clues. With The Satanic Verses bringing up the last trio of redundant words, I didn’t think there would be many unable to identify the author!
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