Plural Worldview in Salman Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence

Abstract

Salman Rushdie’s status as an immigrant to Britain but writing about the Indian sub-continent allows him to posit himself as both an ‘insider’ and an ‘outsider’ of both cultures. Rushdie’s hybrid identity as an Indian, now migrated to Britain, very well suits the technique of magic realism in order to raise voice for those who are marginalized because of their language, religion, caste and nationality.

This research paper attempts to analyze Salman Rushdie’s use of magic realist technique in his novel The Enchantress of Florence in order to depict a plural worldview. By using this technique Rushdie successfully blurs the boundary between fact and fiction. At the same time, this technique enables him to give voice to the historically marginalized character Qora Koz, as the novel is his attempt to write history from below.

Keywords

History, marginality, magic realism, postmodernism, hybridity, decolonization, Salman Rushdie, Dr. Nabarun Ghosh.