Salman Rushdie Denounces Book Banning in First Appearance after Attack

By teHmi dastoor

new yorK: Novelist Salman Rushdie roundly denounced book bans May 18 at PEN America’s annual gala at the American Natural History Museum in New York, his first public appearance since he was brutally attacked last fall.

The writer was awarded PEN’s Centenary Courage Award at the star-studded evening event, which featured Saturday Night Live’s Colin Jost, and comedians John Mulaney and Fred Armisen. Television producer Lorne Michaels and jailed Iranian writer Narges Mohammadi were also honored at the event.

Mohammadi has been imprisoned in Iran since November 2021, on charges of “spreading anti-state propaganda” and defamation. She received PEN’s Barbey Freedom to Write Award, which was accepted by her husband Taghi Ramani, who has also spent time in prison for his writing.

All of us who have been involved with PEN have spent a lot of our lives fighting on behalf of writers in other countries,” said Rushdie in a brief speech at the gala. He served as PEN America’s president from 2004-2006.

The attack on books, the attack on teaching, the attack on libraries in Florida has never been more dangerous, never been more important to fight,” said the acclaimed writer, who himself faced a book ban in several countries in 1988, when his seminal novel, The

Satanic Verses, was published.

Rushdie has carried a $3.3 million bounty on his head for 34 years. The late Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against Rushdie in 1989; the author spent several years in hiding. Iran has since distanced itself from the fatwa, but it nonetheless remains, along with the bounty.

A day before the gala, PEN America and Rushdie’s publisher, Penguin Random House, jointly announced that they were suing Florida’s Escambia County School District and School Board for its ban on several books discussing race, racism, and LGBTQ identities.

The lawsuit states that the ban is unconstitutional, as it violates First Amendment freedom of speech