Although he has become more or less another smug New Yorker, very evident in his mediocre novel The Golden House, I do hope Salman Rushdie lives to write more beautiful prose. The stabbing attack in NYC by a young man with Iranian sympathies, on the 75 year old author, coincides closely with the 75th anniversary of Indian independence from Britain at midnight on 15th August 1947. (Becoming a Republic was about three years later IIRC).
Rushdie was of course the author of Midnight’s Children, which I think is his best book in terms of the beauty of the language and scope of the narrative, commemorating that independence using as the narrative framework the lives of some of the people born at that exact time.
Another of Salman’s beautifully written, but savage, books was Shalimar The Clown, which tells the story of the Punjab. This region is still disputed by the two adjacent states created by Partition in 1947.
With so many flashpoints around the world turning nasty right now it would be quite credible if Punjab were to flare up again. The Pakistan government was regime changed recently. India has defied U$A line on sanctions against Russia, and successfully warded off CronyVirus using actual medicines. If mischief were to be caused in that area to discourage further disobedience I won’t be surprised.
Not forgetting of course that other book that led to the fatwah and the Iran connection. Rushdie had been due to give a lecture on how America provides refuge for oppressed artists/writers from around the world. No irony there.
Now he’s on a ventilator in NYC, a risky damn place to be.