"Salman Rushdie plays with video games in his new book" from PRI and WNYC's The Takeaway

Video games guide the hero in Salman Rushdie's newest book, "Luka and the Fire of Life." It might be difficult to imagine literary titan Salman Rushdie sitting down for a game of Donkey Kong, but video games play a central role in his new book, "Luka and the Fire of Life." A sequel to "Haroun and the Sea of Stories," Rushdie's new book follows Haroun's younger brother, Luka, on his quest to save their father by finding the source of life: fire. Video games may seem like an unlikely vehicle for a writer knighted by the Queen of England, but Rushdie points out that many games are retellings of classic stories. For example, the goal of Nintendo's Super Mario Brothers is to fight villainous creatures to save Princess Peach, who happens to be locked in a castle. "Let's say the best case scenario defense for video games is that they are quite closely modeled, many of them, on old classical quest narratives," Rushdie told PRI's The Takeaway. "And since at the heart of this book is maybe one of the oldest of all the quest narratives -- which is the quest for fire -- it seemed like just an enjoyable thing to do."

Download The Takeaway podcast here. Read the full PRI feature story here. The Harvard Crimson had this to say about the book and story:

Richard Avedon, one of the greatest American photographers of the last century, once took an unforgettable portrait of Salman Rushdie. The author sat for Avedon in London on September 26, 1994, five short years after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran placed a fatwa on the author for his portrayal of Muhammad in “The Satanic Verses.” The subject sits centered in his frame, flush with the camera, staring directly into the lens. Under two thickly arched eyebrows his ever-drooping eyelids frame a gaze at once incredulous, subversive, and strangely hypnotic. The portrait is hard to reconcile with the exuberant wit and wordplay exemplified by so much of Rushdie’s work. The author is, first and foremost, a playful yet captivating storyteller; his ever-imaginative magical realism has often led critics to trumpet his tales as diversions for all generations. Yet dark threads weave consistently through his writing, and his best novels—most notably the Booker Prize-winning “Midnight’s Children”—contain indirect yet sharp political and religious critiques.

Read that Crimson review here. See also: Midnight's Children: A Novel, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, The Satanic Verses: A Novel, The Enchantress of Florence: A Novel