Salman Rushdie is the author of eight novels and four works of non-fiction, most recently, Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002. In 1993 Midnight's Children was judged to be the 'Booker of Bookers', the best novel to have won the Booker Prize in its first 25 years, and he was awarded the Austrian State Prize for European literature. The Moor's Last Sigh won him the Whitbread Prize in 1995, and the European Union's Aristeion Literary Prize in 1996. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Commandeur des Artes et des Lettres. Tim Supple was appointed Artistic Director of the Young Vic in 1993 where he directed many successful productions including Omma, Oedipus and the Luck of Thebes, The Slab Boys Trilogy, Grimm Tales, The Jungle Book, Blood Wedding, More Grimm Tales, Twelfth Night and As I Lay Dying. Productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company include Tales from Ovid (co-adapted with Simon Reade from the Ted Hughes poems), A Servant to Two Masters. He has also directed many productions for the Royal National Theatre including an adaptation of Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Currently he is in pre-production for Projector Productions' television adaptation of Twelfth Night. Simon Reade was Literary Manager at the Gate Theatre from 1990-1993 where he commissioned translations, adaptations of European classics and contemporary world theatre. In 1997 he joined the RSC as Literary Manager and Dramaturg where he commissioned new plays, helped programme the Stratford and London seasons and international touring work and established the young writers workshop. After leaving the RSC in 2001, Simon took up the post of Head of Development at Tiger Aspect Productions. He is currently at the BBC as Editorial Policy Advisor. At the beginning of next year he will be taking up the post of Joint Artistic Director of the Bristol Old Vic Theatre.
