Salman Rushdie to Publish Don Quixote Inspired Novel

Salman Rushdie is to publish a Don Quixote inspired novel later this year. Quichotte is inspired by the Miguel de Cervantes classic text and tells the story of an ageing travelling salesman who falls inn love with a TV star and sets off across America on a quest to prove himself worthy.

Based on the classic novel, it’s a story of a derange time, relationships, racism, and even the end of the world. Bea Hemming from Vintage publishing described the novel as “Quichotte sees Salman Rushdie at the height of his powers. Intricately plotted, wildly original, tender, comic and deeply moving, Quichotte is both an ingenious homage to Cervantes and a book that speaks urgently to our unstable times.”

Rushdie has previously spoken of his love for the classic Don Quixote, which was first published in two parts in 1605, and 1615. In January of last year he told the Guardian of his rereading of the text stating “On the one hand, the characters of Quixote and Sancho Panza are as beautifully realised as I remember them, and the idea of a man determinedly seeing the world according to his own vision, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, feels strikingly contemporary. On the other hand, how many more times are the Knight of the Dolorous Countenance and Sancho going to get beaten up and left in pain in various roadside ditches? The ‘greatest novel ever written’ – I voted for it myself once – turns out to be just a little bit repetitive. To make the reading easier, I’m breaking it up and reading other books by other authors after every couple of hundred pages of Cervantes.”

Rushdie has written thirteen novels and has won several literary awards including the Man Booker Prize and in 2007 was knighted for services to literature. His books have been translated into more than 40 languages and he has sold almost 700,000 books to date.

Quichotte publishes on 3rd September and is available for pre-order now.