Haroun and the Sea of Stories is Salman Rushdie’s first book for younger readers. In the phantasmagorical novel, a young boy named Haroun sets out on a quest to help his storyteller father, who has lost his ability to tell stories. The journey takes him to the moon Kahani, where a Sea of Stories and many fantastical creatures make their home. Haroun finds himself at the heart of a conflict between speech and silence, one which threatens to destroy stories themselves.
Published in 1990, the book came out in the wake of the fatwa issued by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini, which called for the death of Rushdie and all those involved in publishing his 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses. Following the...
