Salman Rushdie: Shalimar the Clown

Shalimar the Clown (Random House)
Although the history of Kashmir provides the backdrop of Salman Rushdie's new novel, it is a larger-than-life romance with larger-than-life characters--a version of Romeo and Juliet and the Ramayana. In this conversation, he describes the ways in which an historical conflict can determine the course of love.