Indi@logs Vol 11 2024, pp 133-140, ISSN: 2339-8523 https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/indialogs.281 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SEDUCTIONS OF WRITING AND READING: A REVIEW OF RUSHDIE’S CROSS-POLLINATIONS BY DANA BĂDULESCU MARIA-SABINA DRAGA ALEXANDRU University of Bucharest, Romania sabina.draga.alexandru@lls.unibuc.ro Received: 17-02-2024 Accepted: 01-03-2024 This book is a passionate reader’s informed critical analysis of the emotional, cultural and, ultimately, textual function of love in Salman Rushdie’s fiction. In Dana Bădulescu’s refined approach, love – for cultures and texts, for people and among people caught up in various social and historical circumstances – is the mechanism through which, despite, at times, serious adverse circumstances, the famous novelist’s literary work comes to life and touches the hearts of a vast international audience. It is well known that Rushdie’s position in the world has always been that of a critical intellectual at odds with the powers that be. Yet, as Bădulescu shows in her vast, enthusiastic and original reading that boldly avoids stereotypes and covers almost the whole of Rushdie’s work so far, his embattled attitude towards the various injustices of political systems hides a fascination with otherness that leads him to a long series of geographical, cultural and inter-human border-crossings. Bădulescu’s Rushdie is a positive, luminous, infinitely creative storyteller (rather than the victim of political injustice, spending his life in hiding and potentially seeking vengeance), in love with the world and with the beauty of its many cultures and mythologies, whose rich web of scenarios of seduction charm audiences worldwide through the power of his unmatchable imagination. The book is introduced by a Foreword signed by Petya Tsoneva of the “St. Cyril and St. Methodius” University of Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria. Tsoneva positions Bădulescu’s contribution within the international exchange of critical ideas under the sign of a “reading of borders”, which she describes as “a recent prolific preoccupation of the academic world”, and describes it as “a multi-level analysis of Rushdie’s spectacular position in the world of writing” (Bădulescu, 2022, ix). Bădulescu, in turn, invites us in her preface to this edition to read the book through the lens of love, which seems to be the most appropriate emotion that should govern the approach to writing of this calibre. She describes herself – and, by extension, any critic – as a reader in love with Rushdie’s writing and proposes an