Rushdie

Today, all it takes for a publisher to run for cover is a letter from an outraged academic. In the 20 years between the publication of The Satanic Verses and the withdrawal of The Jewel of Medina, the fatwa has in effect become internalised. --Kenan Malik, Twenty years on: internalising the fatwa, Spiked Review of Books, November 2008

The British literary landscape is dominated by three writers: Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan. All three have considered the central dilemma of our time: terror. Indeed, Amis has issued something of a manifesto on the subject he terms "horrorism". In their different styles, their approach and opinions define a coherent position. They are the vanguard of British literary neoconservatives, or, if you like, the "Blitcons". --Ziauddin Sardar, Welcome to Planet Blitcon, New Statesman, December 11, 2006

But where do you go from liberal irony, from pragmatic storytelling as the replacement for conviction and belief, once you are forced by harsh circumstances to realize that that way of thinking can’t support its own weight? If you are Salman Rushdie, perhaps you come to believe that the forceful but evil convictions of the Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers can only be resisted by equally forceful convictions that stake out different and superior moral terrain. And the only body of belief known to Rushdie that is capable of supporting such convictions is Islam; the Ayatollah’s hatred is to be countered by a richer understanding of Islam itself. --Alan Jacobs, Salman Rushdie Gets Religion, First Things, January 1992

Postmodern Chutney, by Randy Boyagoda, First Things, February 2003, review of Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992–2002, by Salman Rushdie

Rushdie reborn: Staging Midnight's Children has been an epic struggle, director Tim Supple tells our reporter, by Daniel Rosenthal, London Times, January 7, 2003

Salman Rushdie, Out and About, interview by Dave Weich, Powell's Books, September 25, 2002