Rushdie had become the most famous serious literary novelist in the world-but not in any way worth wishing for. No physical harm was done to him, but by the time the Iranian government announced in 1998 that its policy had changed, Rushdie's Norwegian publisher had been shot, his Italian translator had been stabbed (both recovered), and his Japanese translator had been stabbed and killed.
In its wake, Rushdie went into hiding and was made aware that the threat against him, backed by a seven-figure bounty, was real. Even before the fatwa was declared, there had been growing unrest: demonstrations and book burnings in Britain, and riots in India and Pakistan in which seven people had died. Only twice during two extensive conversations does he refer to it explicitly as “the fatwa”: the death sentence pronounced upon him on February 14, 1989, by Iran's leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, in retaliation against supposed anti-Islamic blasphemy in Rushdie's fourth novel, The Satanic Verses. It is simply “the thing” or “the thing that happened to me” or “that mess” or “the trouble” or “a particular collision with history” or, most often-held firmly at a distance within a highly charged single syllable-“that” or “it.” When Salman Rushdie does talk about it-the ugly, unfortunate decade of fear, blame, and anger that he is determined will not define his life or work-he usually refers to it indirectly.
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