The Author and the Ayatollah

In 1988, Rushdie won the Whitbread Award.              Graham Turner/Guardian

If you remember Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, you may remember the fatwa (death sentence) that was handed down upon him by Iran's religious leader, Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini. "Even if Salman Rushdie repents and becomes the most pious man of all time," he said in response to the author's statement of regret, "it is incumbent on every Muslim to employ everything he has got, his life and his wealth, to send him to hell." That was 25 years ago. The ayatollah is no longer with us, but the author is. And so is this story about his years underground, those who stuck by him and those who didn't ~ and how he survived what author Norman Mailer said was possibly "the largest hit contract in history": http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2014/05/salman-rushdie-ian-mcwean-martin-amis-satanic-verses-fatwa