Reaction to Rushdie

I have not before been familiarized with Salman Rushdie, however, I found "Imaginary Homelands" to be quite intriguing in its philosophical approach to age old questions concerning heritage, homeland, and literature. In my opinion, one of the most interesting points Rushdie makes in the essay is the existing relation between writers and politicians. Since the past and collective memory can often be manipulated by the State, writers are often useful to society in order to challenge the politician's version of the truth. A varied interpretation of the world can be useful to society since, "redescribing a world is the necessary first step towards changing it"(14). Moreover, Rushdie is a valued writer due to his interesting life perspective as he emigrated from India at a young age. Although the homeland he remembered as a boy is strictly imaginary now, his peculiar position between two cultures "is not an infertile territory for a writer to occupy" (15). In some ways Rushdie owes his successful writing career to the atypical circumstances of his heritage as they provided "new angles at which to enter reality"(15).