Salman Rushdie, A Hero for Our Time – Spectator Blogs

It’s twenty years since I read The Satanic Verses. I didn’t much care for it back then, chiefly, as I recall, because Rushdie’s satirical and comic scenes left me untickled. But today – especially today – is a good moment to read the New Yorker’s excerpt from Rushdie’s forthcoming Fatwa Chronicle, Joseph Anton. If you can’t read it today, read it tomorrow. But do read it. Among other things, it made me want to go back and re-read The Satanic Verses.

There are many dates you could choose from which to start a chronicle of our times but, at least in terms of one big question, Valentine’s Day 1989 is as good as any and better than most places from which to begin. That was the day the Ayatollah issued his fatwa; the day life changed for Rushdie himself and, though we may not have perceived it thus at the time, for the rest of us too.