Audiences had come to hear a literary icon discuss freedom of expression and America’s record as a refuge and place of safety for writers around the world.
Instead, they witnessed a terrible attack on a man who has become one of the greatest symbols of our time of the struggle for freedom of expression.
Sir Salman Rushdie he is a huge literary talent, his storytelling has delighted millions of people.
But when he was forced into hiding for a decade, he became best known for something darker, and his subsequent fate captured the public’s imagination, captivating and scary popular culture at the same time.
Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children’s book on India’s independence and partition earned him critical acclaim in 1981 and the Booker Award, but it was his 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses, that made him a household name, for all the wrong reasons.
The gathered crowd was stunned by the attack. Image: AP
Many Muslims were furious at his portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad which they considered derogatory and, angered by the fact that it was written by a man born Muslim, condemned him as an “apostate”.
His books were banned and burned around the world. Political Islam has made Satanic Verses a cause célèbre. But it was the ten-year Islamic theocratic regime in Iran that caused most of the controversy.
Forced into hiding
Its leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, has issued a fatwa, or death sentence, calling for the killing of Rushdie.
The writer was forced into hiding under police protection and would not resurface for a decade. His disappearance, imposed on him by an infamous regime, would become the subject of shattered fascination in popular culture, referenced in jokes, comedy shows, dramas and books for years to come.
Image: AP
Read more: Why is Salman Rushdie so controversial?
In 1998, the Iranian government seemed to be giving in a little, saying it would neither support nor obstruct the assassination of Rushdie.
He took it as a cue to get out of hiding and start leading a more normal life. He has appeared in interviews – and even comic sketches – exploring his situation.
But the threat to his life remained.
Persecuted
An organization that is effectively a branch of the Iranian government put a $ 3 million (£ 2.5 million) bounty on his head.
Since then, he has had to live under the threat of the kind of attack that has now occurred in upstate New York.
The reason for the attack is not yet clear. During his three decades of probation, Rushdie was praised for his extraordinary resilience and fortitude.
He had hoped that in his seventies, long after he was kicked out of public life, he would be free of all evil, not least at the Chautauqua Institution, a place that celebrates the protection of American writers’ records.
