Novelist and Emory University Distinguished Professor Salman Rushdie discussed the humor of a not-so-humorous topic: his life in hiding from an Islamic leader’s call for his death.
The author has not only written 11 novels – including Midnight’s Children, Satanic Verses and Joseph Anton – but he also often teaches and gives presentations on Emory campus. After he was named Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at Emory in 2006, Rushdie’s archive was placed in Emory’s Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library (MARBL).
The experience that this Booker Prize-winning author described in his speech is chronicled in his latest novel: the memoir Joseph Anton.
“[This time] had this quality of simultaneously being funny and not funny,” Rushdie said about the humor he found in his situation during his lecture at Glenn Memorial on Sunday evening. “The comedy is not made up. It was actually there.”
After he published his fourth book, The Satanic Verses, Rushdie learned that the supreme leader of Islam, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, declared the book sacrilegious against Islam and issued a fatwa – a death decree – upon him.
For over nine years, Rushdie was forced underground. He abandoned his British home and hopped from safe house to safe house across the United Kingdom under constant British police protection.
“I’ve done this strange thing that I never thought I would do,” Rushdie said in his calm, yet heavy, British accent. “I wrote an autobiography … I acquired the curse of an interesting life.”
In the outset of the speech, Rushdie discussed the process of choosing his new name, Joseph Anton, to conceal his identity. That process, however, was not easy.
“Not only did I have to give up my name, I had to give up the ethnicity of my name,” he said.
After Rushdie read the first several pages of the book to the audience at the beginning of the speech, he explained that these dire realities included a somewhat comedic element.
The audience followed Rushdie through his journey’s numerous hilarious anecdotes.
As he provided several punch lines to allow the audience to chuckle, he lightened the mood in the discussion of a heavy matter. At one point, he proceeded on a tangent about the “horrible” writing in the book Fifty Shades of Grey.
“I don’t know how it could turn anyone on,” Rushdie said over the audience’s laughter. “Doesn’t the grammar get in the way? Now, what was I talking about?”
But Rushdie was careful not to trivialize the grim nature of his life story as he highlighted the ways in which his life was a battle.
It was a battle between love and hate, he said, where if love hadn’t triumphed he would not be able to speak at Emory at all.
It was a battle between those who had a sense of humor and the humorless as he continued to see the comedic nuances in the events surrounding him.
Lastly, it was a battle for freedom of speech which stems from a significant question.
“The question we ask is, ‘who has power over the story?'” Rushdie said. “We are storytelling animals. We live in these narratives. The question is whether we have the right to change them or retell them or argue over them.”
Rushdie’s very simple answer is that anyone should be able to tell the stories in whatever way they like. As a free society, Rushdie says, we have the right to disagree about books.
“If you don’t like [my book], you know, read another book,” Rushdie said. “This is why there are books in the bookstore by people other than myself.”
After the hourlong address, Rushdie opened the floor to audience questions which ranged from his memories of Christopher Hitchens to the solutions for writer’s block. One of audience members asked Rushdie about his feelings after Joseph Anton was published.
“Writing an autobiography is kind of like undressing in public,” Rushdie said. “Here I am. ‘Hi.’ … You are worried about the degree to which you are exposed.”
Rushdie said that after finishing the book, he was most relieved to not have to talk about the fatwa anymore.
“Now, if people want to hear about it, I will throw a 600-page book at them,” Rushdie said. “Take that. That’s enough fatwa.”
After that last line, the roaring audience raised together in a long, standing ovation.
College freshman Amiel Fields-Meyer was most surprised by Rushdie’s comedic spin.
“I didn’t expect for someone who tells such a lofty story to do it with such humor and ease,” Fields-Meyer said. “I think people see him as a heroic figure and it was clear that he really doesn’t want to be seen as that anymore. And this book is a mechanism of getting past that and putting it to rest.”
Fields-Meyer said he saw a different side of Rushdie through his speech.
“I think people see him not really on a human level because of the magnitude and the consequences of his situation,” Fields-Meyer said. “What he did is [he] made himself more human and brought himself to a level that can be understood by an average person and not by a British intellectual.”
Lauren Ladov (’11C) said she is most grateful for how involved Rushdie is with the Emory community.
“It is a privilege to be in his presence and be able to find inspiration and influence from him on a semi-regular basis,” Ladov said.
– By Karishma Mehrotra
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