Salman Rushdie

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Sir

Salman Rushdie

CH FRSL

Rushdie in 2018

Born Ahmed Salman Rushdie

19 June 1947 (age 75)
Bombay, British India (now Mumbai, India)

Occupation Writer
professor

Citizenship United Kingdom

United States (since 2016)
 Education King's College, Cambridge (BA)

Genre Magic realism

satire
postcolonialism

Subject Historical criticism

travel writing

Notable works Midnight's Children (1981)

The Satanic Verses (1988)

Notable awards  Booker Prize

1981 Midnight's Children
 Ordre des Arts et des Lettres – Commandeur
1999
 Knight Bachelor
2007

Spouse Clarissa Luard

(m. 1976; div. 1987)
Marianne Wiggins

(m. 1988; div. 1993)
Elizabeth West

(m. 1997; div. 2004)
Padma Lakshmi

(m. 2004; div. 2007)

Children 2

Relatives Natalie Rushdie (daughter-in-law)

Signature

Website

salmanrushdie.com

Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie[a] CH FRSL (born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-

American novelist.[2] His work often combines magical realism with historical fiction and
 primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations
between Eastern and Western civilizations, typically set on the Indian subcontinent.
Rushdie's second novel, Midnight's Children (1981), won the Booker Prize in 1981 and
was deemed to be "the best novel of all winners" on two occasions, marking
the 25th and the 40th anniversary of the prize. After his fourth novel, The Satanic
Verses (1988), Rushdie became the subject of controversy, provoking protests and
debates about the roles of freedom of expression and political violence. Death threats
were made against him, including a fatwa calling for his assassination issued
by Ruhollah Khomeini, the supreme leader of Iran, in 1989. The British government put
Rushdie under police protection and he was forced into hiding. [3]
In 1983, Rushdie was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was
appointed a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France in 1999.
[4]
 Rushdie was knighted in 2007 for his services to literature.[5] In 2008, The
Times ranked him thirteenth on its list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945.
[6]
 Since 2000, Rushdie has lived in the United States. He was named Distinguished
Writer in Residence at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York
University in 2015.[7] Earlier, he taught at Emory University. He was elected to
the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2012, he published Joseph Anton: A
Memoir, an account of his life in the wake of the events following The Satanic Verses.
On 12 August 2022, a man stabbed Rushdie, severely injuring him, after rushing onto
the stage where the novelist was scheduled to deliver a lecture at an event
in Chautauqua, New York.[8]

Contents

 1Biography
o 1.1Early life and family background
o 1.2Personal life
 2Career
o 2.1Copywriter
o 2.2Literary works
o 2.3Critical reception
o 2.4Academic and other activities
o 2.5Film and television
 3The Satanic Verses and the fatwā
o 3.1Failed assassination attempt (1989)
o 3.2Hezbollah's comments (2006)
o 3.3International Guerillas (1990)
o 3.4Al-Qaeda hit list (2010)
o 3.5Jaipur Literature Festival (2012)
o 3.6Chautauqua attack (2022)
 4Awards, honours, and recognition
o 4.1Knighthood
 5Religious and political beliefs
 o 5.1Religious background
o 5.2Political background
 5.2.1UK politics
 5.2.2U.S. politics
 5.2.3Against religious extremism
 5.2.4South Asian politics and Kashmir
 6Bibliography
o 6.1Novels (fiction)
o 6.2Collections
o 6.3Children's books
o 6.4Essays and nonfiction
 7See also
 8Notes
 9References
 10External links

Biography
Early life and family background
Ahmed Salman Rushdie[9] was born in Bombay on 19 June 1947[10] during the British Raj,
into an Indian Kashmiri Muslim family.[11][12] He is the son of Anis Ahmed Rushdie,
a Cambridge-educated lawyer-turned-businessman, and Negin Bhatt, a teacher.
Rushdie's father was dismissed from the Indian Civil Services (ICS) after it emerged
that the birth certificate submitted by him had changes to make him appear younger
than he was.[13] Rushdie has three sisters.[14] He wrote in his 2012 memoir that his father
adopted the name Rushdie in honour of Averroes (Ibn Rushd).
Rushdie grew up in Bombay and was educated at the Cathedral and John Connon
School in Fort, South Bombay, before moving to England to attend the Rugby
School in Rugby, Warwickshire, and then King's College, Cambridge, from which he
graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history. [10]
Personal life
Rushdie has been married four times. He was married to his first wife, Clarissa Luard,
[15]
 Literature officer of the Arts Council of England,[16] from 1976 to 1987 and fathered a
son, Zafar (born 1979),[17] who is married to the London-based jazz singer Natalie
Rushdie.[18] He left Clarissa Luard in the mid-1980s for the Australian writer Robyn
Davidson, to whom he was introduced by their mutual friend Bruce Chatwin.[19] His
second wife was the American novelist Marianne Wiggins; they were married in 1988
and divorced in 1993.[20][21] His third wife, from 1997 to 2004, was British editor and author
Elizabeth West;[22][23] they have a son, Milan (born 1997).[24] In 2004, he married Padma
Lakshmi, an Indian-American actress, model, and host of the American reality-television
show Top Chef. The marriage ended in 2007.[25]
In 1999, Rushdie had an operation to correct ptosis, a problem with the levator
palpebrae superioris muscle that causes drooping of the upper eyelid. According to
Rushdie, it made it increasingly difficult for him to open his eyes. "If I hadn't had an
operation, in a couple of years from now I wouldn't have been able to open my eyes at
all," he said.[26]
Since 2000, Rushdie has lived in the United States, mostly near Union Square in Lower
Manhattan, New York City.[27] He is a fan of the English football club Tottenham Hotspur.
[28]

Career
Copywriter
Rushdie worked as a copywriter for the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather, where he
came up with "irresistibubble" for Aero and "Naughty but Nice" for cream cakes, and for
the agency Ayer Barker (until 1982), for whom he wrote the line "That'll do nicely"
for American Express.[29] Collaborating with musician Ronnie Bond, Rushdie wrote the
words for an advertising record on behalf of the now defunct Burnley Building
Society that was recorded at Good Earth Studios, London. The song was called "The
Best Dreams" and was sung by George Chandler.[30] It was while at Ogilvy that Rushdie
wrote Midnight's Children, before becoming a full-time writer.[31][32][33]
Literary works
Rushdie's first novel, Grimus (1975), a part-science fiction tale, was generally ignored
by the public and literary critics. His next novel, Midnight's Children (1981), catapulted
him to literary notability. This work won the 1981 Booker Prize and, in 1993 and 2008,
was awarded the Best of the Bookers as the best novel to have received the prize
during its first 25 and 40 years.[34] Midnight's Children follows the life of a child, born at
the stroke of midnight as India gained its independence, who is endowed with special
powers and a connection to other children born at the dawn of a new and tumultuous
age in the history of the Indian sub-continent and the birth of the modern nation of India.
The character of Saleem Sinai has been compared to Rushdie. [35] However, the author
has refuted the idea of having written any of his characters as autobiographical, stating,
"People assume that because certain things in the character are drawn from your own
experience, it just becomes you. In that sense, I've never felt that I've written an
autobiographical character."[36]
After Midnight's Children, Rushdie wrote Shame (1983), in which he depicts the political
turmoil in Pakistan, basing his characters on Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and
General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. Shame won France's Prix du Meilleur Livre
Étranger (Best Foreign Book) and was a close runner-up for the Booker Prize. Both
these works of postcolonial literature are characterized by a style of magic realism and
the immigrant outlook that Rushdie is very conscious of as a member of the Kashmiri
diaspora.[citation needed]
Rushdie wrote a non-fiction book about Nicaragua in 1987 called The Jaguar Smile.
This book has a political focus and is based on his first-hand experiences and research
at the scene of Sandinista political experiments. He became interested in Nicaragua
after he had been a neighbour of Madame Somoza, wife of the former Nicaraguan
dictator, and his son Zafar was born around the time of the Nicaraguan revolution. [37]
His most controversial work, The Satanic Verses, was published in 1988 (see section
below). It was followed by Haroun and the Sea of Stories in 1990. Written in the shadow
of a fatwa, it is about the dangers of story-telling and an allegorical defence of the power
of stories over silence.[10]
In addition to books, Rushdie has published many short stories, including those
collected in East, West (1994). The Moor's Last Sigh, a family epic ranging over some
100 years of India's history was published in 1995. The Ground Beneath Her
Feet (1999) is a remaking of the myth of Orpheus that presents an alternative history of
modern rock music.[38] The song of the same name by U2 is one of many song lyrics
included in the book; hence Rushdie is credited as the lyricist. [citation needed]

Salman Rushdie presenting his book Shalimar the Clown

Following the novel Fury, set mainly in New York and avoiding the previous sprawling
narrative style that spans generations, periods and places, Rushdie's 2005
novel Shalimar the Clown, a story about love and betrayal set in Kashmir and Los
Angeles, was hailed as a return to form by a number of critics. [10]
In his 2002 non-fiction collection Step Across This Line, he professes his admiration for
the Italian writer Italo Calvino and the American writer Thomas Pynchon, among others.
His early influences included Jorge Luis Borges, Mikhail Bulgakov, Lewis
Carroll, Günter Grass, and James Joyce. Rushdie was a personal friend of Angela
Carter's and praised her highly in the foreword of her collection Burning your Boats.[citation
needed]

2008 saw the publication of The Enchantress of Florence, one of Rushdie's most
challenging works that focuses on the past. It tells the story of a European's visit
to Akbar's court, and his revelation that he is a lost relative of the Mughal emperor. The
novel was praised in a review in The Guardian as a ″sumptuous mixture of history with
fable″.[10]
His novel Luka and the Fire of Life, a sequel to Haroun and the Sea of Stories, was
published in November 2010 to critical acclaim. [10] Earlier that year, he announced that
he was writing his memoirs,[39] entitled Joseph Anton: A Memoir, which was published in
September 2012.
In 2012, Salman Rushdie became one of the first major authors to
embrace Booktrack (a company that synchronizes ebooks with customized
soundtracks), when he published his short story "In the South" on the platform.[40]
2015 saw the publication of Rushdie's novel Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight
Nights, a shift back to his old beloved technique of magic realism. This novel is
designed in the structure of a Chinese mystery box with different layers. Based on the
central conflict of scholar Ibn Rushd, (from whom Rushdie's family name derives),
Rushdie goes on to explore several themes of transnationalism and cosmopolitanism by
depicting a war of the universe which a supernatural world of jinns also accompanies.
[citation needed]

In 2017, The Golden House, a satirical novel set in contemporary America, was

published. 2019 saw the publication of Rushdie's fourteenth novel Quichotte, inspired
by Miguel de Cervantes classic novel Don Quixote.[41]
In 2021 Languages of Truth, a collection of essays written between 2003 and 2020 was
published.[42]
Critical reception
Rushdie has had a string of commercially successful and critically acclaimed novels. His
works have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize five times, in 1981 for Midnight's
Children, 1983 for Shame, 1988 for The Satanic Verses, 1995 for The Moor's Last Sigh,
and in 2019 for Quichotte.[43] In 1981, he was awarded the prize.[44] His 2005
novel Shalimar the Clown received the prestigious Hutch Crossword Book Award, and,
in the UK, was a finalist for the Whitbread Book Awards. It was shortlisted for the
2007 International Dublin Literary Award.[45] Rushdie's works have spawned 30 book-
length studies and over 700 articles on his writing. [10]
Academic and other activities
Rushdie has mentored younger Indian (and ethnic-Indian) writers, influenced an entire
generation of Indo-Anglian writers, and is an influential writer in postcolonial literature in
general.[46] He opposed the British government's introduction of the Racial and Religious
Hatred Act, something he writes about in his contribution to Free Expression Is No
Offence, a collection of essays by several writers, published by Penguin in November
2005.

Salman Rushdie having a discussion with Emory University students

Rushdie was the President of PEN American Center from 2004 to 2006 and founder of
the PEN World Voices Festival.[47] In 2007, he began a five-year term as Distinguished
Writer in Residence at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, where he has also
deposited his archives. In May 2008 he was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of
the American Academy of Arts and Letters.[48] In 2014, he taught a seminar on British
Literature and served as the 2015 keynote speaker [49][50] In September 2015, he joined
the New York University Journalism Faculty as a Distinguished Writer in Residence. [51]
Rushdie is a member of the advisory board of The Lunchbox Fund,[52] a non-profit
organization that provides daily meals to students of township schools in Soweto of
South Africa. He is also a member of the advisory board of the Secular Coalition for
America,[53] an advocacy group representing the interests of atheistic and humanistic
Americans in Washington, D.C., and a patron of Humanists UK (formerly the British
Humanist Association). He is also a Laureate of the International Academy of
Humanism.[54] In November 2010 he became a founding patron of Ralston College, a
new liberal arts college that has adopted as its motto a Latin translation of a phrase
("free speech is life itself") from an address he gave at Columbia University in 1991 to
mark the two-hundredth anniversary of the first amendment to the US Constitution. [55]
Film and television

Rushdie, right, with writers Catherine Lacey and Siri Hustvedt at the 2014 Brooklyn Book Festival

Though he enjoys writing, Salman Rushdie says that he would have become an actor if
his writing career had not been successful. Even from early childhood, he dreamed of
appearing in Hollywood movies (which he later realized in his frequent cameo
appearances).[citation needed]
Rushdie includes fictional television and movie characters in some of his writings. He
had a cameo appearance in the film Bridget Jones's Diary based on the book of the
same name, which is itself full of literary in-jokes. On 12 May 2006, Rushdie was a
guest host on The Charlie Rose Show, where he interviewed Indo-
Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta, whose 2005 film, Water, faced violent protests. He
appears in the role of Helen Hunt's obstetrician-gynecologist in the film adaptation
(Hunt's directorial debut) of Elinor Lipman's novel Then She Found Me. In September
2008, and again in March 2009, he appeared as a panellist on the HBO program Real
Time with Bill Maher. Rushdie has said that he was approached for a cameo
in Talladega Nights: "They had this idea, just one shot in which three very, very unlikely
people were seen as NASCAR drivers. And I think they approached Julian
Schnabel, Lou Reed, and me. We were all supposed to be wearing the uniforms and
the helmet, walking in slow motion with the heat haze." In the end their schedules didn't
allow for it.[56]
In 2009, Rushdie signed a petition in support of film director Roman Polanski, calling for
his release after Polanski was arrested in Switzerland in relation to his 1977 charge for
drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl.[57]
Rushdie collaborated on the screenplay for the cinematic adaptation of his
novel Midnight's Children with director Deepa Mehta. The film was also
called Midnight's Children.[58][59] Seema Biswas, Shabana Azmi, Nandita Das,[60] and Irrfan
Khan participated in the film.[61] Production began in September 2010;[62] the film was
released in 2012.
Rushdie announced in June 2011 that he had written the first draft of a script for a new
television series for the US cable network Showtime, a project on which he will also
serve as an executive producer. The new series, to be called The Next People, will be,
according to Rushdie, "a sort of paranoid science-fiction series, people disappearing
and being replaced by other people." The idea of a television series was suggested by
his US agents, said Rushdie, who felt that television would allow him more creative
control than feature film. The Next People is being made by the British film production
company Working Title, the firm behind such projects as Four Weddings and a
Funeral and Shaun of the Dead.[63]
In 2017, Rushdie appeared as himself in Episode 3 of Season 9 of Curb Your
Enthusiasm,[64] sharing scenes with Larry David to offer advice on how Larry should deal
with the fatwa that has been ordered against him. [65][66]

The Satanic Verses and the fatwā

Further information: The Satanic Verses controversy
The publication of The Satanic Verses in September 1988 caused immediate
controversy in the Islamic world because of what was seen by some to be an irreverent
depiction of Muhammad. The title refers to a disputed Muslim tradition that is related in
the book. According to this tradition, Muhammad (Mahound in the book) added verses
(Ayah) to the Qur'an accepting three Arabian pagan goddesses who used to be
worshipped in Mecca as divine beings. According to the legend, Muhammad later
revoked the verses, saying the devil tempted him to utter these lines to appease the
Meccans (hence the "Satanic" verses). However, the narrator reveals to the reader that
these disputed verses were actually from the mouth of the Archangel Gabriel. The book
was banned in many countries with large Muslim communities (13 in total: Iran, India,
Bangladesh, Sudan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Thailand, Tanzania, Indonesia,
Singapore, Venezuela, and Pakistan).
In response to the protests, on 22 January 1989, Rushdie published a column in The
Observer that called Muhammad "one of the great geniuses of world history," but noted
that Islamic doctrine holds Muhammad to be human, and in no way perfect. He held that
the novel is not "an anti-religious novel. It is, however, an attempt to write about
migration, its stresses and transformations." [67]
On 14 February 1989—Valentine's Day, and also the day of his close friend Bruce
Chatwin's funeral—a fatwā ordering Rushdie's execution was proclaimed on Radio
Tehran by Ayatollah Khomeini, the Supreme leader of Iran at the time, calling the book
"blasphemous against Islam". Chapter IV of the book depicts the character of
an Imam in exile who returns to incite revolt from the people of his country with no
regard for their safety. According to Khomeini's son, his father never read the book. [68] A
bounty was offered for Rushdie's death,[69] and he was thus forced to live under police
protection for several years.[69] On 7 March 1989, the United Kingdom
and Iran broke diplomatic relations over the Rushdie controversy.[70]
When, on BBC Radio 4, he was asked for a response to the threat, Rushdie said,
"Frankly, I wish I had written a more critical book," and "I'm very sad that it should have
happened. It's not true that this book is a blasphemy against Islam. I doubt very much
that Khomeini or anyone else in Iran has read the book or more than selected extracts
out of context."[71] Later, he wrote that he was "proud, then and always", of that
statement; while he did not feel his book was especially critical of Islam, "a religion
whose leaders behaved in this way could probably use a little criticism." [72]
The publication of the book and the fatwā sparked violence around the world, with
bookstores firebombed.[73] Muslim communities in several nations in the West held public
rallies, burning copies of the book.[74] Several people associated with translating or
publishing the book were attacked, seriously injured, and even killed. [b] Many more
people died in riots in some countries. Despite the danger posed by the fatwā, Rushdie
made a public appearance at London's Wembley Stadium on 11 August 1993, during
a concert by U2. In 2010, U2 bassist Adam Clayton recalled that "lead vocalist Bono
had been calling Salman Rushdie from the stage every night on the Zoo TV tour. When
we played Wembley, Salman showed up in person and the stadium erupted. You
[could] tell from [drummer] Larry Mullen, Jr.'s face that we weren't expecting it. Salman
was a regular visitor after that. He had a backstage pass and he used it as often as
possible. For a man who was supposed to be in hiding, it was remarkably easy to see
him around the place."[75]
On 24 September 1998, as a precondition to the restoration of diplomatic relations with
the UK, the Iranian government, then headed by Mohammad Khatami, gave a public
commitment that it would "neither support nor hinder assassination operations on
Rushdie."[76][77]
Hardliners in Iran have continued to reaffirm the death sentence. [78] In early 2005,
Khomeini's fatwā was reaffirmed by Iran's current spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, in a message to Muslim pilgrims making the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.
[79]
 Additionally, the Revolutionary Guards declared that the death sentence on him is still
valid.[80]
Rushdie has reported that he still receives a "sort of Valentine's card" from Iran each
year on 14 February letting him know the country has not forgotten the vow to kill him
and has jokingly referred it as "my unfunny Valentine" [81] in a reference to the song "My
Funny Valentine". He said, "It's reached the point where it's a piece of rhetoric rather
than a real threat."[82] Despite the threats on Rushdie personally, he said that his family
has never been threatened, and that his mother, who lived in Pakistan during the later
years of her life, even received outpourings of support. Rushdie himself has been
prevented from entering Pakistan, however.[83]
A former bodyguard to Rushdie, Ron Evans, planned to publish a book recounting the
behaviour of the author during the time he was in hiding. Evans claimed that Rushdie
tried to profit financially from the fatwa and was suicidal, but Rushdie dismissed the
book as a "bunch of lies" and took legal action against Evans, his co-author and their
publisher.[84] On 26 August 2008, Rushdie received an apology at the High Court in
London from all three parties.[85] A memoir of his years of hiding, Joseph Anton, was
released on 18 September 2012. Joseph Anton was Rushdie's secret alias. [86]
In February 1997, Ayatollah Hasan Sane'i, leader of the bonyad panzdah-e
khordad (Fifteenth of Khordad Foundation), reported that the blood money offered by
the foundation for the assassination of Rushdie would be increased from $2 million to
$2.5 million.[87] Then a semi-official religious foundation in Iran increased the reward it
had offered for the killing of Rushdie from $2.8 million to $3.3 million.[88]
In November 2015, former Indian minister P. Chidambaram acknowledged that
banning The Satanic Verses was wrong.[89][90] In 1998, Iran's former president Mohammad
Khatami proclaimed the fatwa "finished"; but it has never been officially lifted, and in fact
has been reiterated several times by Ali Khamenei and other religious officials. Yet
more money was added to the bounty in February 2016. [91]
Failed assassination attempt (1989)
On 3 August 1989, while Mustafa Mahmoud Mazeh was priming a book bomb loaded
with RDX explosive in a hotel in Paddington, Central London, the bomb exploded
prematurely, destroying two floors of the hotel and killing Mazeh. A previously unknown
Lebanese group, the Organization of the Mujahidin of Islam, said he died preparing an
attack "on the apostate Rushdie". There is a shrine in Tehran's Behesht-e
Zahra cemetery for Mustafa Mahmoud Mazeh that says he was "Martyred in London, 3
August 1989. The first martyr to die on a mission to kill Salman Rushdie." Mazeh's
mother was invited to relocate to Iran, and the Islamic World Movement of Martyrs'
Commemoration built his shrine in the cemetery that holds thousands of Iranian soldiers
slain in the Iran–Iraq War.[76]
Hezbollah's comments (2006)
During the 2006 Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons
controversy, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah declared that "If there had been a
Muslim to carry out Imam Khomeini's fatwā against the renegade Salman Rushdie, this
rabble who insult our Prophet Mohammed in Denmark, Norway and France would not
have dared to do so. I am sure there are millions of Muslims who are ready to give their
lives to defend our prophet's honour and we have to be ready to do anything for that." [92]
International Guerillas (1990)
In 1990, soon after the publication of The Satanic Verses, a Pakistani
film entitled International Gorillay (International Guerillas) was released that depicted
Rushdie as a "James Bond-style villain" plotting to cause the downfall of Pakistan by
opening a chain of casinos and discos in the country; he is ultimately killed at the end of
the movie. The film was popular with Pakistani audiences, and it "presents Rushdie as
a Rambo-like figure pursued by four Pakistani guerrillas". [93] The British Board of Film
Classification refused to allow it a certificate, as "it was felt that the portrayal of Rushdie
might qualify as criminal libel, causing a breach of the peace as opposed to merely
tarnishing his reputation." This effectively prevented the release of the film in the UK.
Two months later, however, Rushdie himself wrote to the board, saying that while he
thought the film "a distorted, incompetent piece of trash", he would not sue if it were
released. He later said, "If that film had been banned, it would have become the hottest
video in town: everyone would have seen it". While the film was a great hit in Pakistan, it
went virtually unnoticed elsewhere.[94]
Al-Qaeda hit list (2010)
In 2010,[95] Anwar al-Awlaki published an Al-Qaeda hit list in Inspire magazine, including
Rushdie along with other figures claimed to have insulted Islam, including Ayaan Hirsi
Ali, cartoonist Lars Vilks, and three Jyllands-Posten staff members: Kurt
Westergaard, Carsten Juste, and Flemming Rose.[96][97][98] The list was later expanded to
include Stéphane "Charb" Charbonnier, who was murdered in a terror attack on Charlie
Hebdo in Paris, along with 11 other people. After the attack, Al-Qaeda called for more
killings.[99]
Rushdie expressed his support for Charlie Hebdo. He said, "I stand with Charlie Hebdo,
as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and
against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity ... religious totalitarianism has caused a
deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris
today."[100] In response to the attack, Rushdie commented on what he perceived
as victim-blaming in the media, stating: "You can dislike Charlie Hebdo.... But the fact
that you dislike them has nothing to do with their right to speak. The fact you dislike
them certainly doesn't in any way excuse their murder." [101][102]
Jaipur Literature Festival (2012)
Main article: Jaipur Literature Festival
Rushdie was due to appear at the Jaipur Literature Festival in January 2012 in Jaipur,
Rajasthan, India.[103] However, he later cancelled his event appearance, and a further
tour of India at the time, citing a possible threat to his life as the primary reason. [104]
[105]
 Several days after, he indicated that state police agencies had lied, in order to keep
him away, when they informed him that paid assassins were being sent to Jaipur to kill
him. Police contended that they were afraid Rushdie would read from the banned The
Satanic Verses, and that the threat was real, considering imminent protests by Muslim
organizations.[106]
Meanwhile, Indian authors Ruchir Joshi, Jeet Thayil, Hari Kunzru and Amitava
Kumar abruptly left the festival, and Jaipur, after reading excerpts from Rushdie's
banned novel at the festival. The four were urged to leave by organizers as there was a
real possibility they would be arrested.[107]
A proposed video link session between Rushdie and the Jaipur Literature Festival was
also cancelled at the last minute[108] after the government pressured the festival to stop it.
[106]
 Rushdie returned to India to address a conference in New Delhi on 16 March 2012. [109]
Chautauqua attack (2022)
Main article: Stabbing of Salman Rushdie
On 12 August 2022, just before he began a lecture at the Chautauqua
Institution in Chautauqua, New York, Rushdie was attacked by a man who rushed onto
the stage and stabbed him repeatedly, including in the neck and abdomen. [110] The
attacker was pulled away before being taken into custody by a local trooper; Rushdie
was airlifted to UPMC Hamot, a tertiary trauma center in Erie, Pennsylvania, where he
underwent surgery before being put on a ventilator. [110][111] The suspect was identified as
24-year-old Hadi Matar of Fairview, New Jersey.[110][112][113] Later in the day, Rushdie's
agent, Andrew Wylie, confirmed that Rushdie had received stab injuries to the liver,
neck, thigh and hand, and that he might lose an eye. [114][115] A day later, Rushdie was
taken off the ventilator and was able to speak.[116][117] Rushdie's agent says Rushdie is on
the "road to recovery", but recovery will take a long time as he is severely injured. [118]
Iran has denied any connection with the stabbing or the attacker and considers Rushdie
and his followers to be responsible for the act. [119][120]

Awards, honours, and recognition

Salman Rushdie has received many plaudits for his writings, including the European
Union's Aristeion Prize for Literature, the Premio Grinzane Cavour (Italy), and the Writer
of the Year Award in Germany, and many of literature's highest honours. [121]
Awards and honours include:

 Austrian State Prize for European Literature  (1993)[122]

 The Booker Prize (1981)[123]
 Golden PEN Award[124]
 Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award (2014)[125]
 Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Indiana University (2018)[126]
 Honorary Doctor of Letters from Emory University (2015)[127]
 James Joyce Award from University College Dublin (2008)[128]
 Outstanding Lifetime Achievement in Cultural Humanism from Harvard
University (2007)[129]
 PEN Pinter Prize (UK)[130]
 St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates[131]
 Swiss Freethinkers Award 2019[132]
Knighthood
Main article: Salman Rushdie knighthood controversy
Rushdie was knighted for services to literature in the Queen's Birthday Honours on 16
June 2007. He remarked: "I am thrilled and humbled to receive this great honour, and
am very grateful that