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photo by VICTOR CHACON

Rushdie signs a copy of "The Satanic Verses" after his lecture at NMSU's Pan-Am Center.

Literary heavyweight visits New Mexico

Controversial author Salman Rushdie shares wisdom, answers questions and signs books in Las Cruces

by KATE MURPHY

Big name, little town
It isn’t every day that a world-renowned author visits humble Las Cruces, N.M.

But on Tuesday, March 10, multiple award-winning British writer Salman Rushdie did just that.

Rushdie, famous for the novels “Midnight’s Children” and “The Satanic Verses,” spoke at New Mexico State University’s Pan-Am Center as part of the university's Speaker Series.

The series, which began in 1992, brings at least one speaker of international acclaim each year to give a lecture to NMSU students and to the entire community of Las Cruces. Previous speakers include Alice Walker, Oliver Sacks, Gloria Steinem, Vali Nasr and Stephen Jay Gould.

The Speaker Series lectures are free and open to the public.

Rushdie’s talk, titled “Step Across This Line: An Evening with Salman Rushdie,” touched on many topics: writing, free speech, politics, family life, popular culture and terrorism.

Blasphemy and bookstore bombings
Rushdie, who speaks in a Mumbai-tinged British accent, is self-deprecating and witty.

As one of the world’s best-known and most critically acclaimed men of letters, his anecdotes were filled with the names of other famous authors: Gunter Grass, Saul Bellow, Susan Sontag. Rushdie could have easily descended into name-dropping, arrogant territory but instead related the stories conversationally, as though he were just having a laugh with the audience about an inside joke they both shared.

No evening with Rushdie would be complete without a segment about the controversy surrounding his award-winning novel “The Satanic Verses.”

After its publication, Rushdie was accused of blasphemy against Islam, and the then-leader of orthodox Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa, or death sentence, against the writer. The Ayatollah called for all pious Muslims to do what they could to end Rushdie’s life.

Rushdie was forced into hiding, and though he never experienced any violence firsthand, many close to him did. The Japanese translator of the novel was stabbed to death, an Italian translator was wounded and two California bookstores were firebombed for selling the novel.

After the 45-minute presentation, Rushdie answered questions from the audience.

The crowd laughed, when, after a young man asked if Rushdie had been frightened by the fatwa, Rushdie said with a chuckle: “Yes! Can we leave it at that?”

Required reading
UNM graduate student Victor Chacon, a fan of Rushdie’s, made the three-hour journey from Albuquerque to see the author speak.

“I first read Salman Rushdie my freshman year of college,” Chacon said. “In my [Introduction to Literature] course we read his short story ‘The Prophet’s Hair.’ I liked it so much, I ran out and bought ‘The Satanic Verses’ and read it immediately.

“I don’t care if I get starstruck when I meet him,” he joked.

During the question-and-answer session, Chacon stepped up to the mic and asked the author a question regarding hybridity in the characters in his novels. Rushdie explained that he believes no one is pure, no one is just one kind of being, and that people take bits of the cultures they appreciate and together these parts form who they are as a person.

Following the session, Rushdie signed books for his readers. The line snaked halfway around the building.

Chacon is glad that Rushdie had agreed to sign books after his speech. “I’m not sure I would have come all the way to Cruces if he hadn’t,” he said.

As popular as his books are, no one said that reading Rushdie is easy.

UNM senior Sarah Kramer, a double major in journalism and English, said, “‘Midnight’s Children’ is one of the most complex and long books I’ve ever read, but it’s magical and engaging and really a storytelling marvel.”

One doesn’t even have to be familiar with the books of Salman Rushdie to be familiar with the controversy surrounding “The Satanic Verses.”

Rushdie himself said during his lecture that many of the people protesting the novel after its release in 1988 had not even read it, and disapproved simply because they felt it probably contained blasphemous or obscene statements.

One man, Rushdie related, came up to him years later and told him he had been involved in a “Satanic Verses” protest but had since read the book and told him he didn’t see what all the fuss was about.

“Really, asshole?” Rushdie told the audience he replied. “You were the one making all the fuss!”

 

Written March 12, 2009

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