Portal:Literature/Did you know/Week 6

... that Salman Rushdie (pictured) is best known for the violent criticism that his book The Satanic Verses (1988) provoked in the Muslim community, and that after death threats and a fatwa by Ruhollah Khomeini, calling for his assassination, Rushdie spent years underground, appearing in public only sporadically?

... that Ugo Riccarelli was awarded the 2004 Strega Prize for his novel, Il dolore perfetto?

... that Roman historian Sallust wrote an account of the Jugurthine War (112-105 BC), Bellum Iugurthinum?

... that Lily Brett has written novels about Holocaust survivors living in New York City, for example Just Like That (1994)?

... that the term masochism was coined by 19th century psychiatrist Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing with Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's writings &mdash; such as his 1870 novel Venus im Pelz (Venus in Furs) &mdash; in mind?

... that Mary Shelley & Percy Bysshe Shelley, Pamela Hansford Johnson & C. P. Snow, Faye Kellerman & Jonathan Kellerman, and Siri Hustvedt & Paul Auster are just four of the many writing couples in the history of literature?

... that U.S. crime writer Donna Leon's novels featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti are all set in and around Venice, Italy, and that they have been translated into many languages, but not into Italian?

... that the Heian period Japanese story Torikaebaya Monogatari is the tale of a man who lives as a woman and his sister who lives as a man, who eventually swap places in order to lead happy lives?