When Salman Rushdie was forced into hiding on Valentine’s Day, February 1989, it was not just the biggest cultural story of the moment; it was the biggest political story too.
Mine was one of the bylines on The Independent's front-page lead story that night of Iran’s fatwa urging the assassination of the novelist, over the content of the author’s fourth novel published in 1988. The Satanic Verses, which included dream sequences containing the prophet Muhammad, had sparked outrage among some Muslims, who considered its content to be blasphemous. An interview with the writer was what everyone wanted, and the founding editor of The Independent, Andreas Whittam Smith, strode over to my desk the next morning and said: “I’m relying on you to find him” – quite an ask.
