Literary community rallies for Salman Rushdie
Prominent members of the literary community held a rally on the steps of the New York Public Library on Friday to show solidarity with Salman Rushdie. Literary figures such as Gay Talese, Andrew Solomon and Tina Brown took turns reading Rushdie's writings aloud. Rushdie, whose novel "The Satanic Verses" drew death threats from Iran's leader in the 1980s, was stabbed in the neck and abdomen last week by a man who rushed the stage as the author was about to give a lecture in western New York. Rushdie, 75, is getting treatment in a Pennsylvania hospital for severe wounds. Police identified the attacker as Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, New Jersey. He was arrested at the scene. Rushdie has faced death threats for more than 30 years over his book "The Satanic Verses," whose depiction of the Prophet Muhammad was seen by some Muslims as blasphemous. In 1989, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa, or Islamic edict, demanding the author's death, and while Iran has not focused on Rushdie in recent years, the decree still stands.
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Author Rachel Eliza Griffiths brings the memoir to next weekend's Tucson Festival of Books. Â
