Rushdie, Padma Lakshmi getting divorced

“Salman Rushdie has agreed to divorce his wife, Padma Lakshmi, because of her desire to end their marriage,” spokesperson Jin Auh said in a statement. “He asks that the media respect his privacy at this difficult time,” the statement said.

Rushdie hit the headlines two weeks ago when he was selected for knighthood by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, provoking renewed anger among some Muslims in Iran and Pakistan.

Rushdie shot to fame in 1981 when his novel Midnight’s Children won the Booker Prize. The late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s supreme religious leader, pronounced a fatwa on him on February 14, 1989, calling on Muslims to kill Rushdie because of perceived blasphemy against Islam in his novel The Satanic Verses.