no book in modern times has matched the uproar sparked by salman rushdies the satanic verses, which earned its author a death sentence. furor aside, it is a marvelously erudite study of good and evil, a feast of language served up by a writer at the height of his powers, and a rollicking comic fable. the book begins with two indians, gibreel farishta (for fifteen years the biggest star in the history of the indian movies) and saladin chamcha, a bombay expatriate returning from his first visit to his homeland in 15 years, plummeting from the sky after the explosion of their jetliner, and proceeds through a series of metamorphoses, dreams and revelations. rushdies powers of invention are astonishing in this whitbread prize winner.