Books, freedom of expression and human rights. Salman Rushdie purposely chose a quote celebrating all three things to make his comeback in person in public after the attack that survived in August last year, when a radicalized young man stabbed the author of ‘The Satanic Verses’, the book for which Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against him in 1989.
The return occurred on Thursday in New Yorkhis adoptive city, in the PEN America Gala, the literary organization that he came to preside over and that in this edition had decorated him with a courage award. Its appearance had not been previously announced, and it caused delight in the Museum of Natural History. Because it allowed Rushdie to rejoin the new york social lifeof which he had become an inescapable figure before the attack, and show again that he may have lost vision in his right eye due to the attack, which is now obscured behind a black lens in his glasses, but he has not lost his sense of humor or his commitment to his values.
“Is nice to be back, instead of not being back, which was also an option. I am quite happy that the dice fell like this & rdquor ;, she said to open a brief and applauded intervention. In that speech of only 10 minutes, he was especially grateful to the people who contained his attacker, and to those who saved his life. “I was the target that day, but they were the heroes. The courage that day was all hers & rdquor ;, she declared. I don’t know their names, I never saw their faces, but To that great group of people, I owe my life.”.
Rushdie also wanted to convey a general message. And he assured that “terrorism should not terrify us. Violence should not deter us. As the old Marxists used to say: the fight continues” the latter phrase that he pronounced in French, Italian and English.
Lawsuit Against Florida
Rushdie, who in addition to the gala was at the cocktail party and posed on the red carpet, addressed other current issues, including the threats against freedom of expression that are being experienced in the United States itself. And he pointed in particular to the demand that the PEN organization, together with the publishing house that publishes it, Penguin Random Houseand some parents and authors have filed this week in Florida against a school District by book restrictionspart of a conservative wave that is attacking teaching and reading across the country that they consider conflicting on issues such as race, gender or sexual orientation.
“It’s colossally important, and we need to win,” Rushdie said. “He attack on booksthe attack on teachingthe attack on libraries (…). It has never been more dangerous. It’s never been more important to fight”.
Suzanne Nossel, CEO of PEN America since 2013, had also spoken about the threats to freedom of expression that exist in the country, although including “from the right and from the left”. And in an interview prior to the gala with ‘The New York Times’, she assured that “people question her, they don’t believe in her, they question her. It is an important moment to prop it up as a cultural and constitutional value & rdquor ;, she assured.
The group itself has been rocked by its problems. This same week, the journalist of ‘The New Yorker’ Masha Geshen resigned as vice president, in protest at the cancellation of a panel at a festival to which they had been invited russian writers and that Ukrainian authors threatened to boycott. And one of the winners of the night, Ted Sarandos, the CEO of Netflix who was going to be recognized for his role in the book adaptations for the screen, canceled his presence at a gala that takes place when the US writers are on strike demanding better working conditions from studios and platforms.
The night was, in any case, one of celebration and vindication, crowned by the return of Rushdie. And the president of PEN America, Ayad Akhtar, who was in charge of introducing him, raised a question to which he himself answered. “Is the damage caused by offensive language something with the same weight as the freedom to speak, the freedom to imagine? The answer is: of course not. Of course not.”
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