Just two weeks before Salman Rushdie was horrifically stabbed in New York, the Booker Prize-winning author said he was more concerned with the rise of ‘‘crypto-fascism’’ in the United States than the death threat hanging over him for 33 years.
Rushdie described himself as an optimist, despite living with constant threats of violence – and spending a decade in virtual hiding – after his 1988 novelThe Satanic Verses, and its depiction of the prophet Muhammed, had drawn death threats from Iran.
