Writer Salman Rushdie has warned that free speech in the West is under the biggest threat he has ever seen in his life, in what was his first public speech since he was attacked.
The British writer sent a video message to the British Book Awards, which awarded him, on Monday night, the Freedom to Publish award, which “recognizes the determination of authors, publishers and booksellers who oppose intolerance, despite the threats they face”reports AP.
“We live in a time when freedom of expression and freedom of publication have never been, in my life, so endangered in western countries”he said.
“Now that I am sitting here in the United States, I have to look at the extraordinary attack on libraries and children’s books in schools. The attack on the idea of the libraries themselves. It is extremely alarming and we have to be very vigilant and fight hard against it.”added.
During his speech, Salman Rushdie che also criticized publishers who tweak decades-old books to suit modern sensibilities, as with large-scale cuts and reissues of works by children’s author Roald Dahl and James Bond creator Ian Fleming.
Publishers must allow books to “come down to us from their time and be of your time And if that is difficult to accept, don’t read it, read another book”, considered the author.
Salman Rushdie, 75, appeared in the video visibly thinner than before the attack and wore glasses with tinted lenses.
The writer was blinded in his right eye and suffered nerve damage in his hand after a 24-year-old man stabbed him as he was starting a conference in Chautauqua, New York, in August last year.
The alleged attacker, Hadi Matar, has pleaded not guilty to assault and attempted murder charges.
Salman Rushdie spent years in hiding and under police protection after the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa (religious decree) in 1989, calling for his death for what he considered blasphemy, from the novel “The Satanic Verses”.
The writer gradually returned to public life after the Iranian government distanced itself from the order in 1998, stating that it would not support any attempt to kill him, although the fatwa it has never been officially revoked.
Salman Rushdie won the Booker Prize in 1981 for his novel “Midnight’s Children” and, in 2008, he was voted the best winner of that prestigious literary award.
His most recent novel, “Victory City,” completed a month before the attack, was released internationally in February this year by Penguin Random House, and will arrive in Portugal at the end of the yearEdited by Don Quixote.
Source: Observadora
