Haroun and the Sea of Stories is a 1990 children's novel by Salman Rushdie. It is Rushdie's fifth major publication and followed The Satanic Verses (1988). It is a phantasmagorical story that begins in a city so miserable and ruinous that it has forgotten its name. Haroun and the Sea of Stories is an allegory for problems existing in society in the present day, especially in the Indian subcontinent. It presents these problems from the perspective of the young protagonist, Haroun. Salman Rushdie dedicated this book to his son, from whom he was separated for some time. Many elements of the story deal with the problems of censorship, an issue particularly pertinent to Rushdie because of the fatwa against him issued in 1989 by Ayatollah Khomeini. The book is highly allusive and contains puns in multiple languages. Many of the major characters' names allude to some aspect of speech or silence. It is available as an audiobook read by Rushdie himself. Source: Wikipedia (en)