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Feroza Jussawalla, Salman Rushdie and postsecularism: The Satanic Verses and the postcolonial Bildungsroman, Literature and Theology, Volume 38, Issue 2, June 2024, Pages 148–154, https://doi.org/10.1093/litthe/frae020
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Abstract
This article reads Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses as a Bildungsroman that is postcolonial and postsecular. Among the distinctiveness of the postcolonial Bildungsroman is that it can present a protagonist who can negotiate among nationality, religion, secularism, and postsecularism. This article contextualizes The Satanic Verses within Islamic poetic forms and Rushdie’s secular upbringing in postcolonial India. This context shows how Rushdie, rather than blaspheming the Prophet Muhammad, approaches the Prophet’s life story with postsecular wonder and awe. This postsecularism is not a turn towards religion but a means of approaching cultural myths.