Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie. Library Call Number: PR6068.U757Z46 2012.
From the Publisher’s Description: On February 14, 1989, Valentine’s Day, Salman Rushdie
was telephoned by a BBC journalist and told that he had been “sentenced to
death” by the Ayatollah Khomeini. For the first time he heard the word fatwa.
His crime? To have written a novel called The Satanic Verses, which was
accused of being “against Islam, the Prophet and the Quran.”
So begins the extraordinary story of how a writer was forced underground,
moving from house to house, with the constant presence of an armed police
protection team. He was asked to choose an alias that the police could call him
by. He thought of writers he loved and combinations of their names; then it
came to him: Conrad and Chekhov—Joseph Anton.
It is a book of exceptional frankness and honesty, compelling, provocative,
moving, and of vital importance. Because what happened to Salman Rushdie was
the first act of a drama that is still unfolding somewhere in the world every
day.
No comments:
Post a Comment