“It might be my fault,” Salman Rushdie admitted, tongue in cheek, at the recently concluded Hay Festival, when talking about Donald Trump. Drawing parallels between the current President of the United States and a character his new novel The Golden House, published last year, Rushdie pointed out that his character “...is in the real estate business...he likes his name big on buildings...and he has a Russian trophy wife.”

“This was long before anybody was even thinking about the present incumbent of the White House,” he explained to poet Tishani Doshi, whom he was in conversation with at the festival. “Is it your fault?” Doshi asked. Looks like we know who’s to blame now.