The Rushdie File

by Lisa Appignanesi

Book Overview

A book on the Rushdie affair and provides documentation from all sides with a chronology of events from the publication of the book to the present day, from Bradford to Iran and from India to the US... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0815602480
• ISBN13: 9780815602484
• Release Date: February 1990
• Publisher: Syracuse University Press
• Length: 266 Pages
• Weight: 0.89 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

The Many Sides of One Issue

I picked up this book at random in a used bookstore, and as I have always enjoyed Salman Rushdie's writing I thought I would give it a read. I was wholly amazed by what I learned. First of all, I can honestly say I did not catch any of the slights to Islam when I read The Satanic Verses, as I am very uneducated in Islamic culture. After starting the Rushdie File, I became uncertain as to whether I understood any of the main points of The Satanic Verses, but I do remember enjoying it. So there is at least a small lesson about the Islamic religion (especially as it relates to The Satanic Verses) in this book for anyone who is uninformed about it.Even more importantly, however, and not entirely separately, is how much there is to be learned about Islamic culture. A lot of the articles go very far in explaining just why the Muslim community was so outraged by the passages, which, from an average Western sensibility, is not necessarily clear. And if you are like me, it might be hard to read certain parts of this book. I had a very hard time reading the calls for Rushdie's death, and an even harder time trying to understand why and how masses of people could react the way they did. It is a good educational experience for anyone who is baffled by the differences in culture that were brought to light by this incident. Some of these articles do not paint the Islamic culture in a flattering light, especially in my opinion, as a person who would never support censorship. But one of the best articles of the bunch talks about the difference between "interpreting" and "advocating" - that the West must understand Islamic culture and why our viewpoints can be so different before we can try to live in the same world peacefully, but also reminds that that is different from agreeing with how the other culture behaves. This book also brings home the point that there are never only 2 sides to any issue. Every person will have a different viewpoint, and it is important for every person to think for herself before just accepting one party line or the other. This is displayed in The Rushdie File by the enormous amount of divergent opinions represented by the choice of material included, and there is guaranteed to be something for everyone to both agree and disagree with.

Exploring the backlash against The Satanic Verses

If you've read Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses and want to know more about the controversy over the book and the death sentence placed on him by the Ayatollah Khomeini, this book provides a variety of articles from critics, political leaders, authors, and reporters on the events that occurred after publication of Rushdie's novel and the issues that caused them. I found it to be very helpful in understanding what parts of the book exactly were found to be particularly offensive by Muslims, since my own knowledge of Islamic traditions and culture is lacking. Since it is a compilation of many sources, it provides a wide array of opinions and perspectives that help to shed light on differing views of censorship, freedom, tolerance, and sacredness.