2023-10-20 16:02:00
It is one of his rare public appearances since he was brutally attacked in August 2022 and subsequently lost sight in one eye. Salman Rushdie, author of the Booker Prize-winning Midnight’s Children (1981) and The Satanic Verses (1988) – works that inspired a fatwa by the then Iranian Ayatollah – arrived at the 75th anniversary book fair. There he will present his new novel “City of Victory” and accept the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade.
DW spoke with the author about his recovery from the assassination attempt, his work, the influence of literature and the war between Israel and Hamas.
DW: The Peace Prize of the German Book Trade is awarded not only for artistic achievement, but also for contribution to international understanding and, in your particular case, commitment to freedom in the world. What does this award mean to you?
Salman Rushdie: It is very important. I think everyone who loves books knows this award. It has been awarded to many wonderful people. So I’m very glad that my name has joined this list.
How are you feeling today, just over a year after you were attacked and seriously injured?
– As you can see, I feel good, I have recovered. Of course, I’m still a little weak, but I’m okay.
– In a February interview with The New Yorker, you said you suffered from writer’s block after the attack. But a few days ago your publisher announced that your new book will be published in the spring (“Knife“), in which you will talk about the attack on you and its consequences. How were you able to return to creativity?
– Inspiration just returned again. I think it was shortly after my interview with The New Yorker that I noticed that things were picking up. Therefore, I am glad that I was able to write this book, which will be published in the spring of 2024.
– Was there anything that particularly helped you?
– You know, this is just practical experience. I have been doing this work for a very long time. In the end, this is what brings you back to business.
– Let’s talk about your latest book “Victory City“, released this year. This is a fictional account of the rise and fall of the medieval city of Bisnaga in southern India, where men and women of different faiths were expected to have equal rights. But in the end the empire collapses because she abandons her ideals. Is this some kind of book about today’s world?
– I believe that when you write about history, to a certain extent you also talk about the present. Because when we look into the past, we see what interests us: our own anxieties reflected in earlier times.
But what I really wanted to do was create my own world. Many writers have done the same, be it William Faulkner with Yoknapatawpha, (Gabriel) García Márquez with Macondo, or the Indian writer Razipuram Krishnaswami Narayan with Malgudi. I wanted to create my own little world – and this saga became that world.
– Some critics called the book a feminist novel. Was this what you intended?
– Well, one of the things that interested me when I was collecting information for the book was that it is indeed true that in this very distant period – we are talking about the 14th and 15th centuries – the position of women in society was in many relations were very advanced: much attention was paid to the education of girls, and there were almost as many schools for girls as for boys. Women worked in all spheres of life: in the army, had legal professions, were engaged in trade, and so on.
It really was like that. But, of course, nothing is constant in history: the life of my heroine Pampa Campana, on whose behalf I tell this story, is full of ups and downs. There were times when she was queen, but there were others when she was banished to the jungle.
I think this also applies to the values of society. There are times when it is liberal, tolerant and open, and there are times when it becomes short-sighted and intolerant. I think that’s how human life is.
– The fatwa that was issued to you more than 34 years ago almost cost you your life during last year’s attack. Why are autocrats, dictators and powerful people so afraid of literary stories?
– In many parts of the world, dictators have always been afraid of writers. And this is very strange, because writers do not have an army.
– How do you explain this to yourself?
– I think they are afraid of alternative versions of the world. One of the characteristics of authoritarian rule is that it imposes its version of the world on us to the exclusion of all others. But, of course, each writer has his own version of the vision of the world. And sometimes those in power don’t agree with this, so they try to silence poets.
In 2007, protests took place in Pakistan in response to the knighting of the writer Rushdie for services to literature by the Queen of Great Britain. Photo: Mk Chaudhry/epa/dpa/picture alliance
– How can literature help in the war situation in the Middle East?
– She can’t help much. You know, I always try not to overestimate the power of literature. What writers can do, and what they are doing, is to try to articulate the incredible pain that so many people are feeling right now and bring it to the world’s attention. I think that’s what writers do everywhere, and that’s probably the best thing we can do: find a way to express the essence of the problem.
– Do you mean to say that words lose their power in this situation?
– I just think that there are things against which words are powerless. And what they can’t do is stop wars.
One of the first casualties of war is usually the truth. Because people are starting to present their own propaganda version of events. And this is very difficult when in a war zone you cannot distinguish truth from fiction.
I think the problem that reporters and journalists now have to face is how to identify the truth of the facts. And if journalism manages to do this, then it thus provides a very valuable service.
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