Salman Rushdie: Is free speech under attack?

The Cultural Frontline

This week, as the world has been reacting to the shocking news of the attack on the author Sir Salman Rushdie at a book event in New York State, The Cultural Frontline asks what this attack means for the world of writers and publishing and what it says about freedom of expression in literature today.

Tina Daheley is joined by the Kurdish author and former human rights lawyer Burhan Sönmez, the Ugandan novelist Kakwenza Rukirabashaija and the US Irish writer and literary translator Maureen Freely.

Sir Salman is one of the most celebrated writers in the English language. His second novel, Midnight's Children, won the Booker Prize for fiction, one of literature's top awards. It was Rushdie's fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, which became his most controversial book, and he was forced to go into hiding as a result of the backlash after it was published in 1988. Many Muslims reacted with fury to it, arguing that the portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad was a grave insult to their faith. He faced death threats and the then-Iranian leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa - or decree - calling for Rushdie's assassination. In recent years the author seemed to enjoy a new level of freedom.

Please be warned that there are descriptions of torture in this programme which some listeners may find distressing.

Producer: Simon Richardson

(Main Image: Sir Salman Rushdie onstage at the Guild Hall Academy Of The Arts Achievement Awards 2020, March 03, 2020, New York City. Credit: Sean Zanni / Patrick McMullan via Getty Images.)