With the publication of "Midnight's Children" (Deti Polunochi) by St. Petersburg's Limbus Press last month, Russia saw the first major work by Salman Rushdie in print.

It is a curious fact that it has taken so long for Rushdie's works to appear in Russian. He has long been acclaimed as one of the best authors writing in English, or indeed any language. His global acclaim is unparalleled among living authors: "Midnight's Children," the Booker Prize winner of 1981, was voted "the Booker of Bookers" in 1993, becoming the best Booker-winning novel of the first 25 years in the prize's history. Moreover, Rushdie is often identified with "magic realism" -- though the writer himself dislikes the term -- which has been hugely popular with Russian readers since Soviet days, when books by Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Jorge Amado became instant hits. Last but not least, Rushdie's name is known to many people in Russia, even those not closely following the literary process, due to the fatwa proclaimed in 1989 by Ayatollah Khomeini, the then-leader of Iran, calling for the author's execution as punishment for his allegedly blasphemous portrayal of the prophet Mohammed in his novel "The Satanic Verses," published the year before.

That, perhaps, is the answer to the riddle. After a series of public burnings of the book, assaults on Rushdie's translators and publishers, the massacre of protesters and Rushdie himself being forced into hiding for several years, many publishers were wary of tackling his books. With the virgin soil of modern foreign literature laying before them, Russian publishers were spoiled for choice in the early 1990s and did not care for anything controversial and potentially dangerous.

The gap became more and more evident, however, and finally, Limbus Press announced plans to publish a four-volume collection of Rushdie's works. It is notable that the publishers deliberately excluded "The Satanic Verses" from the list. A news release on their web site concedes the omission and describes the trail of violence tied to the novel.

"Midnight's Children," which made it into The Guardian's list of the 100 best books of all time, is a rich, imaginative tale set in Rushdie's native India. Saleem Sinai, the narrator, is born at midnight on Aug. 15, 1947, the day India gained independence. It turns out that all children born that night have mysterious powers, and Saleem is affected more than the rest. This novel is perhaps the best starting point to get to know Rushdie. In an interview with Kommersant, the writer expressed satisfaction with his Russian debut, adding, "Trust me, I don't care at all to be [just] an important political figure."