Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses," an ambitious work of magical realism, received one of the most violent and enduring backlashes in literary history for its treatment of Islamic lore. Its 1988 release was met with demonstrations, riots and bans in Muslim-majority countries.
Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or religious edict, in 1989 calling for the author and everybody who worked on the book to be killed, after which an Italian translator of the novel was stabbed, a Japanese translator of "The Satanic Verses" murdered, and a Norwegian publisher shot and wounded. Rushdie was forced into hiding for years; the book is still banned in more than a dozen countries, including Iran, India and Kenya.
The motive behind this month's attack on Rushdie is still unclear, but the incident "highlights that suppression and censorship of books has been going on for centuries and is still happening today," said Pom Harrington, director of the upcoming Firsts: London Rare Book Fair, which centers around the theme of banned books.
The fair, which features more than 120 exhibitors and runs September 15-18 at London's Saatchi Gallery, encompasses a broad sweep of censored titles cutting across history and geography. It will include books banned for obscenity, blasphemy and security reasons, among them the discoveries of Copernicus and an edition of "Dr. Zhivago" covertly published by the CIA to undermine the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Comments
Post a Comment