Quichotte (novel)
Quichotte is a 2019 novel by Salman Rushdie, his fourteenth work. Inspired by Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote, it is a metafictional story that blends a tale about a writer with the adventures of his creation.
The plot centers on Sam DuChamp, an Indian-born American writer who creates a character named Ismail Smile. Smile, a traveling pharmaceutical salesman who has suffered a stroke, becomes obsessed with Salma R, a former Bollywood star who hosts a daytime talk show in New York. Never having met her, Smile writes love letters under the name “Quichotte” and sets off across America in a Chevrolet Cruze with his imaginary son, Sancho. Their journey takes on urgent themes of modern life—racism, the opioid crisis, family, and the power and craziness of pop culture—as the two intertwined stories unfold.
Rushdie has said he was drawn to Don Quixote’s modern, self-aware quality and wanted a parallel storyline about a creator and his characters that would eventually merge. Quichotte features a story-within-a-story, a nod to Cervantes, and uses names and motifs (Quichotte, Sancho, Dulcinea) to echo the classic while updating it for today. The title’s spelling and the line between reality and fantasy are playful elements in the book.
Quichotte was published on August 29, 2019 in the United Kingdom and India, with a U.S. edition released on September 3, 2019. It was Rushdie’s 14th novel and was shortlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize. Critics mostly praised its humor, ambition, and timely themes, though some found it uneven or densely packed with ideas. It appeared on The New York Times hardcover fiction best-seller list for the week of September 14, 2019.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 08:56 (CET).