The National Book Foundation has revealed the winner of its 2026 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
Salman Rushdie will be honored with the award, given annually to “recognize a lifetime of literary achievement,” at the National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner in New York on Nov. 18.
Rushdie made his literary debut in 1975 with the novel Grimus. His second novel, Midnight’s Children, published in 1981, won the Booker Prize, and made him a literary superstar. He made worldwide headlines in 1988 with his novel The Satanic Verses, which led Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who labeled the book as blasphemous, to issue a fatwa against the author.
In 2022, Rushdie was nearly killed in a stabbing attack in Chautauqua, New York. He wrote about the experience in a memoir, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, which was a finalist for the National Book Award for nonfiction.
Ruth Dickey, the executive director of the National Book Foundation, said in a statement, “Salman Rushdie’s sweeping body of work is a celebration of literature’s power to shape narratives, build bridges, and form connections beyond borders, generations, and identities. Rushdie’s novels and short story collections are set across real and imagined landscapes, and his writing thrives in its specificity—offering readers access to unflinchingly honest stories that are culturally, politically, and geographically varied.”
The Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters was established in 1988. Previous winners include Toni Morrison, Ursula K. Le Guin, Robert A. Caro, Barbara Kingsolver, and George Saunders.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
