On September 26, 1988, Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses was first published in English. The book would fundamentally change the life of its author. Because of alleged blasphemy, there were violent protests in numerous countries, and imports were banned in India and Pakistan.
Almost half a year after publication, the Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini called for the murder of Rushdie and everyone involved in the distribution of the novel – provided with a bounty worth millions and increased several times in the years that followed. Khomeini relied on an Islamic legal opinion, a so-called fatwa, that he had commissioned.
More than 30 years later, Rushdie was assassinated.
On August 12, 2022, a 24-year-old attacked the writer at a lecture in upstate New York. Rushdie survived with serious injuries, was temporarily ventilated and suffered permanent damage. After years underground and under police protection, Rushdie has been living freely in New York for some time without worrying about his life, as he said in interviews.
To mark the anniversary of the first publication of his controversial novel, numerous literary associations and writers organized solidarity readings. On September 26, more than 60 authors read in one Action of the German PEN Center in English, Italian, French, Kurdish, Farsi and German from various works by the writer. Among others, Ulrike Draesner, Jenny Erpenbeck, Nora Gomringer, Thomas Lehr, Ingo Schulze, Uwe Timm and Ilija Trojanow are represented.
A solidarity event with Margaret Atwood, John Irving and Ian McEwan will follow at the Festival of Authors in Toronto on September 27th.
A participant at the New York Solidarity Show quoting Salman Rushdie: “It’s very, very easy not to be offended by a book. You just have to close it.”
For September 29, this is calling International Literature Festival Berlin to take part in a “Worldwide Reading” of Rushdie’s works to set a “sign for the freedom of literature and the public word”. Elfriede Jelinek, Jennifer Clement, Andrei Kurkov, Wole Soyinka, Janne Teller, Bernard-Henri Levy, Peter Schneider, Amir Hassan Cheheltan, Robert Hass and Sergei Lebjedev are involved.
In August, a solidarity reading entitled “Stand with Salman” took place in New York and Berlin, in which the authors AM Homes and Siri Hustvedt, among others, took part.
Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses is about two Indian actors who survive a plane crash. One turns into the archangel, the other resembles the devil. The title of the novel refers to two verses that Satan is said to have whispered to the Prophet Mohammed.
