Salman Rushdie’s fourth novel, ‘The Satanic Verses’, met with great success when it was published in 1988. Shortlisted for that year’s Booker Prize it went on to win the Whitbread Award and garnered largely positive reviews from critics. The writing and actual story soon took a backseat though as controversy built around the book, quickly becoming a global talking point and sparking debates about free speech.
The controversy revolved around Rushdie’s supposed blasphemous depiction of the Prophet Muhammad. A magical realist tale ‘The Satanic Verses’ tells the story of two Indian Muslim expats, Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha, as they piece their lives together after surviving a fall from a hijacked plane. Rushdie uses dream sequences to tell a series of sub-plots that drive the overall narrative on.
It was these sequences that caused offence as they reimagined the life of the Prophet Muhammad, portraying a picture offensive to many muslims. Many figures soon began to condemn the book in Rushdie’s adopted England and around the world. In his native India the book was burned and the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa against all involved in the publication or translation of the book.
This fatwa resulted in numerous attacks and deaths, including the murder of the Japanese translator Hitoshi Igarashi, and the world became embroiled in the debate between religious toleration and freedom of expression. While Rushdie was eventually able to come out of hiding and freedom of speech escaped any lasting damage, in the West at least, ‘The Satanic Verses’ had become a controversy more than a book.
Susan talks with Sharae Deckard, Treasa de Loughry, and Joel Kuortti about ‘The Satanic Verses’ and its impact on the world of writing. How should this book be viewed? Why did it cause so much upset? Has it been misinterpreted? And did the controversy help or hinder the book in the end?
Before this Susan looks at other books that have proved highly controversial with Iranian writer and academic, Azar Nafisi. Born in Tehran in 1955 Azar was educated in Switzerland and the US before returning to Iran in 1979 to teach English literature. Here she witnessed the Iranian Revolution and the rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini and the Iranian Republican Party.
The increasingly restrictive and conservative policies introduced by the new regime rankled Azar. By the mid ‘90s she found it impossible to continue teaching and she left her post at Tehran University. She invited several of her female students to continue learning at her house with weekly meetings. Here they read many controversial works including Vladimir Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’.
In ‘97, with no end of the conservative regime in sight, Azar left Iran for the US. Here she continued to write and teach and established herself as a leading public commentator. Borrowing Nabokov’s title she released her autobiography of life during and after the Iranian Revolution, ‘Reading Lolita’. Published in 2003 it rocketed to the top of the New York Time’s bestseller list where it stayed for more than a hundred weeks.
Join Susan as she talks with Azar about ‘Reading Lolita’, her life in Iran and since, and what it is like for her being so far from home. What power is there in books? Why do those in charge so often fear them? And why is it so important that we read and write controversial books?
This week's music to read to
The show opens with Keith Kenniff's 'Pride' while Jonathan Kirkscey's 'Ghost River' brings us out of part one. The show itself is closed out by Jonathan with the track 'Only Child'.
