Posts Tagged ‘ Salman Rushdie ’

The Swedish Academy

Mar 24th, 2016 11:34 am | By

A mere 27 years after the fatwa was first issued, the Swedish Academy steps up and says it’s a bad thing.

The Swedish Academy, which selects the winners of the Nobel Prize in literature, has condemned an Iranian death warrant against British writer Salman Rushdie, 27 years after it was pronounced.

Two members quit the academy in 1989 after it refused to condemn Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini’s fatwa, or religious edict, against Rushdie for allegedly blaspheming Islam in his book “The Satanic Verses.” Citing its code against political involvement, the academy issued a statement defending free expression but without explicitly supporting Rushdie.

Well done by the two members who quit. Condemning an incitement-and-bribe to murder a writer does not have to … Read the rest

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Just a place where people talked

May 6th, 2015 11:55 am | By

A little more from Joseph Anton, which is an encyclopedia of the kind of bad thinking that’s been going on for the past week. It takes place in France, which is fitting, and mentions a beloved friend of mine.

At the first meeting of the so-called “International Parliament of Writers” in Strasbourg he worried about the name, because they were unelected, but the French shrugged and said that in France un parlement was just a place where people talked. He insisted that the statement they were drafting against Islamist terror should include references to Tahar Djaout, Farag Fouda, Aziz Nesin, Ugur Memeu and the newly embattled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen as well as himself. Susan Sontag swept in, embraced

… Read the rest

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Being pushed into ever-narrower definitions

May 3rd, 2015 5:14 pm | By

I’ve been reading Salman Rushdie’s Joseph Anton again, and I keep finding poignant ironies and echoes de nos jours.

Like when he goes to Stockholm to receive the Kurt Tucholsky Prize, “given to writers resisting persecution.”

The Swedish Academy met in a beautiful rococo room on the upper floor of the old Stockholm Stock Exchange Building. Around a long table were nineteen chairs upholstered in pale blue silk. One was for the king, just in case he showed up; it stood empty if he did not, which was always. On the backs of the other chairs were Roman numerals from I to XVIII…He* had been granted permission to enter literature’s holy of holies, the room in which the Nobel

… Read the rest

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It lets murderers start and be part of the conversation

May 2nd, 2015 11:00 am | By

If you want to see people saying good, intelligent, reasonable things, you can do worse than check out Salman Rushdie’s Twitter. He’s RTd several such things.

Joel Gordon @JoelGord13 hours ago
Do Charle Hebdo opponents at PEN realize that boycotting their award normalizes murder as opposition to speech?

@JoelGord It lets murderers start and be part of the conversation. This is why none of their analogies to American racists, etc. works.

There’s Azar Nafisi:

Azar Nafisi ‏@azarnafisi
.@PENamerican @SalmanRushdie PEN award to CH is recognition of the writers’ &artists’ rights to “disturb the peace,”regardless of the price

.@SalmanRushdie @PENamerican Satanic Verses didn’t insult true Muslims, it offended their oppressors who treated their own authors same way

Also … Read the rest

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When she continued to refuse to make a religious vow

Apr 11th, 2015 11:04 am | By

Remember the attack on Zainub Dala last month? After she said at a writers’ festival in Durban that one of the many writers she admired was Salman Rushdie? Well now, according to PEN America, she’s been shoved into a mental institution. Bookslive.co.za reports:

Now, according to PEN America, the shocking news has come about that Dala has been put under “extreme pressure” by members of the Muslim community in Durban to “renounce her statement about Rushdie’s work” and “to make a public vow of religious loyalty to Islam”.

When she refused, she was apparently admitted to a mental institution.

PEN America has called for Dala’s “immediate and unconditional release” and has also called on President Jacob Zuma and the

… Read the rest

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He annoyed the religious sentiments of Muslims in the past

Jan 17th, 2012 10:58 am | By

Now to look at each one in more detail, though not calmly.

Protests from “influential Muslim clerics” in India have prompted the organizers of a literary festival in Jaipur to take Salman Rushdie’s name off the list of speakers. He was scheduled to speak at three events during the five day festival.

The BBC explains in the way it invariably does.

Mr Rushdie sparked anger in the Muslim world with his book The Satanic Verses, which many regard as blasphemous.

No he didn’t. Mr Rushdie wrote a novel. Some people chose to become enraged about the novel and its author. He did not “spark” anything, nor did he do anything wrong. Many regard many things as blasphemous. If we take … Read the rest

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