Salman Rushdie, whose novel The Satanic Verses famously resulted in a fatwa being placed on the author, has been knighted for his services to literature.
Salman Rushdie, whose novel The Satanic Verses famously resulted in a fatwa being placed on the author, has been knighted for his services to literature.
Rushdie was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in a ceremony on 25 June, following the announcement of the knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honours list in June last year.
The fatwa placed on the author by the late Iranian ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989, after the publication of The Satanic Verses, has never been formally revoked (although the Iranian government announced in 1998 that it would not support it), and the announcement of the knighthood in 2007 provoked protests from Iran and Pakistan, as well as a threat from Al Qaeda.
Rushdie's most recent novel is The Enchantress of Florence, published in April by Random House.
http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2008/07/08762/
This article from Thorpe Bowker's Weekly Book Newsletter and Media Extra© Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC.