TWO decades after ‘Satanic Verses’ sparked a never-ending controversy and provoked a ‘fatwa’ for his head, author Salman Rushdie has only one thing to say to his detractors: ‘I did not write it for the mullahs’. The India-born controversial writer, who has lived for years under the shadow of his 1988 book, now liberally jokes about the whole issue.
Speaking at London’s Hay Festival of Literature and the Art in Wales, the 64-year-old author said books are intended for people who like them. Joking about the ‘fatwa’ issue during an interaction, he said he did not write it “for the mullahs. I didn’t think they were my target audience. The only thing worse than a bad review from the Ayatollah Khomeini would be a good review from the Ayatollah Khomeini.“