The British writer Hanif Kureishi decided to mark the 20th anniversary of the Rushdie affair by adapting for the stage his 1995 second novel “The Black Album”. The novel is set in 1988/89 and the Rushdie affair and radicalization of young Muslims are its central themes. The Black Album charts the cultural and political development…
Twenty years ago Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa called on to kill the author Salman Rushdie after weeks of protests had been going on about one of his books. Many British Muslims despised The Satanic Verses for blaspheming the Prophet Muhammad and burned copies of Rushdie’s book on British streets. This aroused strong sentiments on all sides,…
Twenty years ago a fatwa was imposed on Salman Rushdie, but as Kenan Malik explains, Islam’s outrage touched more than one man – it altered us all. It was 20 years ago this month that Ayatollah Khomeini pronounced his fatwa on Salman Rushdie. “I inform all zealous Muslims of the world”, he proclaimed, “that the…
Salman Rushdie is threatening to sue publisher John Blake Publishing Ltd. over a book by a former bodyguard that he says portrays him as mean, nasty, tight-fisted, arrogant, and extremely unpleasant. Rushdie’s lawyer Mark Stephens wrote a letter to the publisher, demanding that the book – called On Her Majesty’s Service – be withdrawn from…
A German theater has brought Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses to the stage, with no sign of trouble after authorities promised thorough security precautions. The Hans-Otto Theater in Potsdam says its version, which has 12 actors and ran for nearly four hours, is the first theatrical presentation of the novel. Iran’s late spiritual leader, Ayatollah…
