Sir Salman Rushdie has forfeited his home, freedom, marriage and peace of mind due to his controversial writings. The 75-year-old Indian-born British author, whose writing led to death threats from Iran in the 1980s, was stabbed on stage in New York state on Friday, with his current condition in hospital unclear.
The incident is not the first time his life has come under threat. Iran’s former ruler Ayatollah Khomeini sentenced him to death in February 1989 for the “blasphemous” The Satanic Verses, which parodied the Koran’s account of the prophecies of Mohammed, founder of Islam.
Inextricably trapped within the net of his own written words - and with a £1 million-plus bounty on his head - Sir Salman Rushdie came to symbolise the freedom of the writer and the fragility of the profession. The book generated fury and division, stirring up emotive, complicated questions about religion and racial harmony, law, politics and diplomacy, literary freedom and ethics.
