#33 in Literary fiction
The Satanic Verses
- 560
- Pages
- about 10 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“The Satanic Verses” is magical realism at full stretch: dreams, faith and plotlines from different eras keep crossing and feeding one another. Some readers find it confusing in places and its language dense, yet those who settle into the stories of Gibreel and Saladin describe a compelling, entertaining plot. At 560 pages it suits readers at ease with postmodern fiction, and it takes the life of Muhammad as one of its sources.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Satanic Verses is the fourth novel by British–Indian writer Salman Rushdie. First published in September 1988, the book was inspired by the life of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. As with his previous books, Rushdie used magical realism and relied on contemporary events and people to create his characters. The title refers to the Satanic Verses, a group of Quranic verses about three pagan Meccan goddesses: Allāt, Al-Uzza, and Manāt. The part of the story that deals with the satanic verses was based on accounts from the historians al-Waqidi and al-Tabari.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.5 across 197 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 57% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Literary fiction average of 8.1. That is how 7.8 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.4 | 28 | 14% |
| Hardcover | 7.6 | 169 | 86% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Satanic Verses?
It has 560 pages — longer than 82% of the ranked books in Literary fiction.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Literary fiction — with scores between 7.6 and 8.4, closest to this book.
