Salman Rushdie on Surviving the Fatwa
b'Thirty-four years ago, the Ayatollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, issued a fatwa calling for the assassination of the novelist Salman Rushdie, whose book \\u201cThe Satanic Verses\\u201d Khomeini declared blasphemous. It caused a worldwide uproar. Rushdie lived in hiding in London for a decade before moving to New York, where he began to let his guard down. \\u201cI had come to feel that it was a very long time ago and, and that the world moves on,\\u201d he tells David Remnick. \\u201cThat\\u2019s what I had agreed with myself was the case. And then it wasn\\u2019t.\\u201d In August of\\xa0last year, a man named Hadi Matar attacked Rushdie onstage before a public event, stabbing him about a dozen times. Rushdie barely survived. Now, in his first interview since the assassination attempt, Rushdie discusses the long shadow of the fatwa; his recovery from extensive injuries; and his writing. It was \\u201cjust a piece of fortune, given what happened,\\u201d that Rushdie had finished work on a new novel, \\u201cVictory City,\\u201d weeks before the attack. The book is being published this week. \\u201cI\\u2019ve always thought that my books are more interesting than my life,\\u201d he remarks. \\u201cUnfortunately, the world appears to disagree.\\u201d\\xa0\\nDavid Remnick\\u2019s Profile of Rushdie appears in the February 13th & 20th issue of The New Yorker.'