Salman Rushdie is a British-Indian author whose work on religion and politics has made him controversial in several parts of the world.
His first three novels – Grimus (1975), Midnight’s Children (1981) and Shame (1983) – received critical acclaim, but his fourth, The Satanic Verses, was criticized.
Several scenes from the 1988 book depict a character modeled after the Prophet Muhammad, and this drew anger from some members of the Muslim community in Britain.
They consider it blasphemous.
Protests spread as far as Pakistan in January 1989 and the following month, the spiritual leader of the Iranian revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, condemned the book and brought charges against him.
A bounty was offered for his execution.
The book was burned around the world and its translator was attacked – Hitoshi Igarashi, who translated it into Japanese, was murdered in 1991.
Rushdie took on an alias and hid under the protection of Scotland Yard, although he made occasional public appearances.
Rushdie continues to write, despite the threat to her life
Despite the threat to his life, he continued to write and in 1998 the Iranian government announced it would no longer enforce the fatwa.
However, the real Fatwa has never been revoked, and the Verses of Satan are still banned in Iran and some other countries.
Rushdie wrote about her experience in third-person memoir Joseph Anton in 2012.
Speaking in New York three years later, he said: “If you are a free speech organization, if you believe in the value of free speech, then you must believe in the value of free speech that you dislike.
“If you’re just defending freedom of speech in accordance with your own moral framework then that’s what’s commonly called censorship.”
He was knighted in 2007, a move criticized by the governments of Iran and Pakistan.
