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At the New York City Public Library, family, friends and admirers of British writer Salman Rushdie paid tribute to him this Friday, August 19, and defended freedom of expression. The tribute took place exactly one week after the novelist was seriously stabbed while he was participating in a literary event. The ceremony was followed by Rushdie from the hospital.
“Without freedom of expression none of us are safe.” It was one of the central messages in the tribute to British essayist Salman Rushdie, who is recovering in a Pennsylvania hospital.
Some 320 kilometers away, on the steps of the historic building of the New York Public Library, this August 19 figures from the literary world such as Jeffrey Eugenides, Tina Brown and Kiran Desai praised his works, from which they read fragments, and shared wishes about a total recovery of the novelist.
‘Stand with Salman: Defend the Freedom to Write or ‘Support Salman: Defend the freedom to write’ was the name of the event convened by PEN America, the most prestigious writers’ club and non-profit organization that advocates for the freedom of expression.
“All writers who speak the truth are my brothers. Every writer who does not allow herself to be ruled by fear is my sister. Salman Rushdie’s courage in the face of religious fascism is an example for us all,” said author Stephen King.
Rushdie, 75, received a dozen stab wounds to the neck and abdomen last Friday, August 12, while on stage during a literary event in New York.
The writer was persecuted for decades after his work “The Satanic Verses” was considered blasphemous in some Muslim countries. A book from which passages were read this Friday as a form of tribute, in addition to others of his literary creations.
The author spent years in hiding after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran issued an edict in 1989 calling for his death. However, he had traveled freely in the past.
“He has been a constant and tireless defender of words and writers attacked for the supposed crime of their work (…) Today we will celebrate Salman for what he has endured, but more importantly, what he has spawned: the stories, the characters, the metaphors and the images it has given the world,” said PEN Executive Director Suzanne Nossel.
The tribute was followed by Rushdie from the medical center where he is and his health condition has improved after he was removed from a mechanical ventilator that was provided to help him breathe, according to his literary agent.
“It was great to see the crowd gathered,” said the writer’s son, Zafar Rushdie, who was with his father.
“You didn’t ask to be a hero”
“You didn’t ask for the role of hero: you just wanted to be allowed to write in peace, but you ended up becoming our hero,” said British writer Tina Brown, who later read several paragraphs in which the novelist claims the importance of the press, the “necessary skepticism of journalists and their constant questioning of power”.
Meanwhile, American author Jeffrey Eugenides, known for novels such as the Pulitzer Prize-winning ‘Middlesex’, recalled traveling to London in the early 1980s when he was 20 and Rushdie’s groundbreaking novel ‘Midnight’s Children’, had been published recently.
He noted that he knew then that Rushdie lived in that city and decided he wanted to meet him. It was years before ‘The Satanic Verses’ and Eugenides found his name and address in the phone book.
“I took the subway to his house. As it turned out, Salman was not at home; he was in Italy, on vacation,” said the Michigan-born novelist, who was greeted by Rushdie’s then-mother-in-law, with whom he left a note for the author.
“That was the world we used to live in,” he added.
A judge denied bail to the suspect in attacking Salman Rushdie
The tribute came after a judge in Mayville, New York, on Thursday, August 18, denied bail to Hadi Matar, 24, identified by authorities as the man who carried out the attack.
At the hearing, the suspect pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and assault, but was officially indicted on the charges by the Chautauqua County Court.
The magistrate in charge of the case chose to keep the defendant in preventive detention.
The newspaper ‘The New York Post’ reported that in prison, Hadi Matar assured that he despised Rushdie by calling him “anti-Muslim” and expressed admiration for the Ayatollah.
With EFE and AP
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