Salman Rushdie

The irreverent, Indian-born, British author Salman Rushdie now says he repents having written "The Satanic Verses" and has renewed his faith in Islam. This, however, is not enough for fundamentalist Muslim leaders in Iran and Britain; their death sentence against the author still stands. In Iran, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says to do otherwise would change the "divine ruling" of his late predecessor, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, whose mobs seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran 11 years ago. In Britain, the head of the Muslim Youth Movement has imposed conditions he admits Mr. Rushie can never meet.

In Susan Reimer 's column ("At home with the Jesuses?" Sept. 25), she compares herself with Salman Rushdie. Mr. Rushdie published his works expressing his sincere beliefs with the knowledge that his life could be at risk. Ms. Reimer seems to have written her column with the aim of insulting all who believe in Jesus and respect his mother. Ms. Reimer seems to feel that she can do so with impunity. Her attempt at being cute fails miserably. Has The Sun sunk to this level? Annunziata Kurek, Elkridge

Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" is a novel in which the two main characters bounce unpredictably through time and space, past and present.Today, exactly four years after Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini imposed a death sentence on Mr. Rushdie for blaspheming Islam in his book, the creator of those fantastic travelers remains an earth-bound prisoner of the late Ayatollah's edict, or fatwa, which comes with a bounty of more than $2 million. Guarded by British police, moved from safe house to safe house, Mr. Rushdie is frozen in the present, his future on hold.

Once again, 15 aspiring cooks confront a series of culinary challenges that test their skill, nerves and judgment in the kitchen as Bravo rolls out its third season of Top Chef tomorrow. Last season brought the show to the forefront of the pop-culture zeitgeist (and blogosphere) due less to the contestants' cooking chops than to the rivalry that arose between two of the youngest contestants, Marcel Vigneron, the exasperating molecular gastronomist with the winged coiffure, and Ilan Hall, the naughty hipster-traditionalist who ultimately triumphed.

IMAGINARY HOMELANDS:ESSAYS AND CRITICISM,1981-1991.Salman Rushdie.Granta Books/Viking.` 432 pages. $24.95. Two years ago, the world's toughest book critic took on Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses." In a scenario familiar to literary editors, free-lancer Ayatollah Khomeini savaged his subject so excessively that he turned his hated novelist into a household name.But even an ayatollah can't work miracles. He couldn't turn a serious, Indian-born British intellectual into a household voice.

It would be improbable for me to dislike a book by Salman Rushdie. He has written seven previous novels, a collection of short fiction and four nonfiction books. I have read much of that, and he has yet to fail me. He goes on growing - on me, at least. Now comes Fury (Random House, 259 pages, $24.95). It's remarkably short, concise, in contrast to his superb and sprawling The Moor's Last Sigh (1996, 434 pages) and The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999, 575 pages). Rushdie narrates Fury in a voice that is cosmopolitan, confiding and casual.

"The Ground Beneath Her Feet," by Salman Rushdie. Henry Holt. 578 pages. $27.50.It's the best thing ever written about rock and roll. It is rock and roll. Most of such writing is dumb or preening or just doesn't get it. The trouble with rock and roll is the words (half of them never get heard) and the music (very simple and so loud you can hardly hear it). So what is it? Why is it important? Because it's force. It's animal, human, spiritual power! It's exclamation, not explanation. It's experience, not explication.

I hope you were cozy in the Blizzard of '96. Myself, I ventured outside only for moments. I spent the rest of the time in heaven, Bombay mostly, reading a book: "The Moor's Last Sigh," by Salman Rushdie (Random House. 448 pages. $25).Any attempt to distill its action and events would be to slight and mislead. Cliffs Notes are not art. This is a work of art, complex yet brilliantly accessible, a saga of a brilliant, tragic family. Within its tale are many stories, dominated by an encounter of 36 or perhaps 72 years among a mother and a son and civilization.

Two weeks ago here, and elsewhere in The Sun, I have written about Salman Rushdie and his latest novel, "The Moor's Last Sigh." I am driven to scribble a bit more today by reasons quite personal.Reading Mr. Rushdie's new book and darting back into some of his earlier work, then taking that all into an intense conversation with him gave to me a renewed sense of the vitality of disciplined distance, a quality that is easy to gloss into triviality.The mortal enemy and principal alternative to distance, of course, is self-indulgence.

NOVEL SHALIMAR THE CLOWN By Salman Rushdie. Random House. 416 pages. It circumnavigates the globe and the last half of the 20th century like a hyperactive satellite, but Salman Rushdie's rich and restless new novel, Shalimar the Clown, has an ominous stillness at its center. Its title character is a dangerous cipher. We are supposed to believe that he is driven to homicidal monomania by romantic betrayal, but the heart of this Muslim Kashmiri is opaque. Shalimar the Clown makes vivid stopovers in 1990s Los Angeles and resistance-era France, but the novel's true home is the gorgeous, viciously contested land of Kashmir.

One by one, the season's new arrivals beckon, waving us over to the tables on which they lounge so seductively: Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie gives us a come-hither look. The March by E.L. Doctorow whispers low and sweet in our ear. Zadie Smith's On Beauty provocatively flutters its pages. Slow Man by J.M. Coetzee flips open its cover and spreads out before us on its spine. It's so tempting to sample the merchandise. And who, really, does it hurt? So many great new books, so little money.

NOVEL SHALIMAR THE CLOWN By Salman Rushdie. Random House. 416 pages. It circumnavigates the globe and the last half of the 20th century like a hyperactive satellite, but Salman Rushdie's rich and restless new novel, Shalimar the Clown, has an ominous stillness at its center. Its title character is a dangerous cipher. We are supposed to believe that he is driven to homicidal monomania by romantic betrayal, but the heart of this Muslim Kashmiri is opaque. Shalimar the Clown makes vivid stopovers in 1990s Los Angeles and resistance-era France, but the novel's true home is the gorgeous, viciously contested land of Kashmir.

It would be improbable for me to dislike a book by Salman Rushdie. He has written seven previous novels, a collection of short fiction and four nonfiction books. I have read much of that, and he has yet to fail me. He goes on growing - on me, at least. Now comes Fury (Random House, 259 pages, $24.95). It's remarkably short, concise, in contrast to his superb and sprawling The Moor's Last Sigh (1996, 434 pages) and The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999, 575 pages). Rushdie narrates Fury in a voice that is cosmopolitan, confiding and casual.

Connie Chung's interview of Congressman Gary Condit will be presented tonight as an ABC News program. But don't let the label fool you: This is merely the latest entry in the blazing-hot genre of reality programming - somewhere between rats crawling over contestants on NBC's Fear Factor and Julie Chen interviewing the guy who put a knife to a woman's throat on CBS' Big Brother. Each of the Big Three networks can be equally proud of how they elevate the culture through video spectacles of voyeurism, narcissism, exhibitionism and titillation.

Because James Joyce's "Ulysses" had been banned in the U.S., I read it when I was 12 years old. Because Vladimir Nabokov's novels were banned in the USSR, a Russian Jewish woman in my Towson University freshman comp class had read them all before she left the Soviet Union -- one tattered, furtively-passed-around mimeographed page at a time. Because Salman Rushdie (along with everyone involved in publishing or selling it) had been condemned to death,, "The Satanic Verses" lured my octogenarian parents to Gordon's book store where, by telephoned pre-arrangement, a clerk sold them a plain-brown-paper-wrapped copy.

New York -- A queue is wrapped around Cooper Union in west Greenwich Village. It is 6:20 p.m. on Tuesday, April 13, and in 40 minutes, Salman Rushdie is scheduled to give his first reading open to the American public in more than a decadeThe event coincides with publication of "The Ground Beneath Her Feet," the longest and most ambitious of Rushdie's seven novels. His appearance defies a decree that he be put to death.Ten years and two months ago, Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini informed all Muslims of the world that Rushdie "and all those involved in ['The Satanic Verses,' his fourth novel's]

LONDON -- British literary brawls don't get much better than this: John le Carre vs. Salman Rushdie.The heavyweight novelists have been going pen to pen for days in the pages of the Guardian newspaper over freedom of speech.Le Carre fired off a verbal jab: "Rushdie's way with the truth is as self-serving as ever."Rushdie unloaded a hook: "If he ever wants to win an argument, John le Carre could begin by learning to read."After five rounds of increasingly bitter letters to the editor last week, the Guardian finally dubbed the dustup, "The Satanic correspondence."

One by one, the season's new arrivals beckon, waving us over to the tables on which they lounge so seductively: Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie gives us a come-hither look. The March by E.L. Doctorow whispers low and sweet in our ear. Zadie Smith's On Beauty provocatively flutters its pages. Slow Man by J.M. Coetzee flips open its cover and spreads out before us on its spine. It's so tempting to sample the merchandise. And who, really, does it hurt? So many great new books, so little money.

"The Ground Beneath Her Feet," by Salman Rushdie. Henry Holt. 578 pages. $27.50.It's the best thing ever written about rock and roll. It is rock and roll. Most of such writing is dumb or preening or just doesn't get it. The trouble with rock and roll is the words (half of them never get heard) and the music (very simple and so loud you can hardly hear it). So what is it? Why is it important? Because it's force. It's animal, human, spiritual power! It's exclamation, not explanation. It's experience, not explication.

LONDON -- British literary brawls don't get much better than this: John le Carre vs. Salman Rushdie.The heavyweight novelists have been going pen to pen for days in the pages of the Guardian newspaper over freedom of speech.Le Carre fired off a verbal jab: "Rushdie's way with the truth is as self-serving as ever."Rushdie unloaded a hook: "If he ever wants to win an argument, John le Carre could begin by learning to read."After five rounds of increasingly bitter letters to the editor last week, the Guardian finally dubbed the dustup, "The Satanic correspondence."