“Afterward, when the world was exploding around him, he felt annoyed with himself for having forgotten the name of the BBC reporter who told him that his old life was over and a new, darker existence was about to begin.”
The day was February 14, 1986, the man who received the call was Salman Rushdie. A fatwa was issued against him by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The reason? Rushdie’s latest novel The Satanic Verses, a book that the Ayatollah labelled as “blasphemous against Islam.”
In Joseph Anton: A Memoir, Rushdie revisits this period of his life. Rushdie recently spoke with Mike Duncan and Jean Stilwell about his memoir.
Joseph Anton: A Memoir is available through Knopf Canada.
Podcast: Play in new window
