Marianne Wiggins

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American author noted for the unusual characters and storylines in her novels. She has won a Whiting Award, an NEA award and the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction in 2004 for her novel Evidence of Things Unseen. Wiggins lived in London for 16 years, and for brief periods in Paris, Brussels and Rome. In January 1988, she married the novelist Salman Rushdie in London. On 14 February 1989 the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a Fatwa ordering Rushdie's assassination for alleged blasphemy in his book, The Satanic Verses. Although Wiggins had told Rushdie only five days prior that she wished to end their marriage, she nevertheless went into hiding along with him.' In 1993, the two divorced. Wiggins currently lives in Los Angeles, California, where she has been in the English department of the University of Southern California since 2005. Link to Wikipedia biography