Thanks to the fatwa issued against him by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini following the 1989 publication of his novel, The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie will never be just another writer. “Forced to go underground for several years and travel everywhere with a phalanx of bodyguards, Rushdie was given a reprieve of sorts in 1998, when a reformist Iranian government distanced itself from the previous ruling… Despite this, Rushdie has not settled into a life of hedonistic comfort. He has been active in American PEN, speaking out vigorously on issues that affect writers around the world. And in his latest novel, the critically well-received Shalimar the Clown, Rushdie has taken on terrorism in the best way he knows how: by exploring the personal nature of fanaticism and how it has made the planet a more dangerous place.”