Salman Rushdie is, thankfully, on the road to recovery after the shocking attack last week that left him hospitalized with wounds to his face, neck and abdomen. The stabbing is a grisly result of the fatwa declared by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 over Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses, which was perceived as irreverent in its depiction of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Rushdie lived under strict security measures for many years, many of which had been relaxed prior to the attack.
Henry Reese, who was moderating the event and was injured when he went to Rushdie's aid, is co-founder of City of Asylum in Pittsburgh, Pa., which promotes free expression, provides sanctuary for writers and artists under threat of persecution, and has a bookstore. He suggested to CNN that people react to the attack by buying a book by Rushdie and reading it; writers should "write to the full extent of truthfulness and their ability"; and all should recognize that creative expression "brings people to discuss important issues and to think about people other than themselves." Sales of Rushdie's books have surged since the attack.
The Satanic Verses follows two Indian expatriates on a hijacked flight from India to Britain that explodes over the English Channel. Both are miraculously saved; one takes on the personality of the archangel Gabriel, the other a devil. Their resulting experiences in England frame a series of dream sequences, including one based on the life of Muhammad. The novel's title refers to several Quranic verses about the pre-Islamic pagan gods of Mecca that Muhammad later renounced as errors induced by the Devil. Rushdie is the author of 11 other novels, including Midnight's Children (1981), which won the Booker Prize. The Satanic Verses is available from Random House Trade Paperbacks ($19).
