Salman Rushdie
British-Indian novelist; the 1989 fatwa against him for The Satanic Verses made him the focus of a writers' free-expression campaign in which Mailer, then between PEN duties, took a leading public role.
Salman Rushdie, the British-Indian novelist, was condemned to death by Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1989 fatwa over his novel The Satanic Verses. The crisis made him the focus of an American writers’ free-expression campaign in which Mailer took a leading part: he read a statement at the 22 February 1989 New York meeting of hundreds of writers (“A Folly Repeated,” 89.8, excerpted as 89.2), represented the writers with Robert K. Massie, J. Anthony Lukas, and Letty Cottin Pogrebin at a 3 March news conference (89.3, 89.4), and contributed to the New York Times Book Review’s “Words for Salman Rushdie” (89.5): “We believe in freedom of expression as an absolute. How dangerous to use the word absolute, but you have pulled it forth from us — your health!”
Stub created during the 1989 ingest.
Related pages
- “A Folly Repeated” (89.8) | PEN American Center | 1989