'Shame' is and is not about Pakistan, that invented, imaginary country. The theme is shame and shamelessness, born from the violence which is modern history. Revelation and obscurity, affairs of honour, blushings of all parts, the recession of erotic life, the open violence of public life, create the extraordinary Rushdie mood. It is robust and baroque; an incarnation of the political novel. It can be read as a fable, polemic or excoriation; as a history or as fiction. It is a novel of myth and satire.
