5/13/2023 0 Comments Rushdie memoir![]() The Satanic Verses was published 10 years before Rushdie’s 24-year-old alleged attacker, Hadi Matar, was even born. Read: All because Salman Rushdie wrote a book But also, after so many years, of course I would appear onstage with him: Was anyone really that worked up about Salman Rushdie, or even about novels, anymore? Wasn’t the Satanic Verses controversy just receding history, useful only as a stellar reference point for demonstrating one’s literary-political bona fides?īut now we have this answer to those questions. Of course I would appear onstage with Rushdie: My own commitments to freedom of expression and to the higher goods of literature matter more to me than any concern for my personal safety-and appearing with Rushdie, of all people, was about as clear and assured a sign of this as one could give. Every time I took part in one of these, my mother would tell me to be careful. Over the years, I have interviewed Rushdie at public events in Toronto and New York, and hosted him for events associated with PEN Canada and the University of Toronto. This singular symbol of daring artistic ambition has become, suddenly, a flesh-and-blood person in grave suffering. ![]() ![]() He has wounds to his neck, stomach, and liver severed nerves in one of his arms and, according to his literary agent, Andrew Wylie, will probably lose an eye. Salman Rushdie was stabbed repeatedly yesterday at the Chautauqua Institution, in western New York. ![]()
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