AMERICAN-British-Indian Novelist Salman Rushdie has warned about the ‘freedom of expression’ and publishing being under threat in the West after receiving an award from the British Book Awards earlier this week.
75-year-old Salman Rushdie was awarded the “Freedom to Publish Award” by the British Book Awards, which took place in Mayfair Grosvenor House in London, United Kingdom.
Rushdie could not receive the award in person.
However, he did give a video address, in his message; He thanked the award-giving body and then later warned about the ‘freedom of expression’ and publishing in the West being under threat.
“The freedom to publish of course is also the freedom to read and the freedom to write. The ability to write what you want, to have, to be able to choose what you want to read and not have it decided for you externally, and the freedom to publish books that ought to be published and need to be published, and sometimes are difficult to publish because of pressure from this or that group.”
“It’s very important I think that such pressure should be resisted and we live in a moment I think at which freedom of expression, freedom to publish has not in my lifetime been under such threat in the countries of the West. Obviously, there are parts of the world where censorship has been prevalent for a long time…”
“Now, I’ve been sitting here in the United States, I have to look at the extraordinary attack on libraries and books for children and schools. The attack on the idea of libraries themselves, it’s quite remarkably alarming and we need to be very aware of it and to fight against very hard.”
“Books have to come to us from their time and be of their time, and if that’s difficult to take, don’t read it. Read another book. But don’t try and remake yesterday’s work in the light of today’s attitudes,” said Salman Rushdie, Novelist.
It can be recalled that Rushdie was stabbed multiple times on stage during a literary event in New York 9 months ago where he suffered nerve damage to his hand and became blind in the right eye afterward.
The American-British-Indian novelist is most known for his book called ‘The Satanic Verses’ which became controversial because of his satiric use of Islam.
It was then later condemned by Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and a ‘fatwa’ was issued calling for the killing of Rushdie as well as his editors and publishers.
