Salman Rushdie

LONDON -- He has been on the run for six years, hiding under armed guard in a network of safe houses.Now, with old passions fading and a new book to sell, British author Salman Rushdie is ending the seclusion imposed by a zealot's death sentence.As a survivor, he is sadly wiser in the ways of the world, Mr. Rushdie says, but no less disposed to speak his mind."One of the things a writer is for is REUTERSSalman Rushdieto say the unsayable, to speak the unspeakable, to ask difficult questions," he said a week ago at his first announced appearance in public since being sentenced to death by Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 for alleged blasphemy against Islam.

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]

Are Republicans in the House of Representatives really sure that they want this election to be about impeachment?The smart money took a beating on Asian trades. Dumb money is sitting pretty.Salman Rushdie in Britain is reprieved. Iran agrees to execute only its own blasphemous authors.John Waters put Hampden on the cinematic map, and vice versa.Pub Date: 9/28/98

Feb. 14 1895: Oscar Wilde's final play, The Importance of Being Earnest, opened at the St. James's Theatre in London. 1920: The League of Women Voters was founded in Chicago. 1989: Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini called on Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses.

After a run of 16 straight weeks, Alexandra Ripley's "Scarlett" will drop from the top of Sunday's New York Times best-seller list. The new No. 1 will be "Hideaway" by Dean R. Koontz.Also, the long-delayed paperback version of Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses" is scheduled to be out in the spring.

The nation invested millions of dollars and all its hopes in Lieutenant Grizzard and Ensigns O'Neill and Smith. The loss is incalculable.Among the few things that are sacred, Fells Point cobblestones stand out.The NFL and NBA are going head-to-head to see which can put franchises in smaller markets.First Bill met and supported Salman Rushdie. And then he apologized for it, and apologized for it and apologized for it.What if the facts on the Information Highway are wrong?

Shalimar the Clown By Salman Rushdie Max Ophuls, a brilliant former diplomat, is murdered in Los Angeles by his driver, a Kashmiri Muslim terrorist named Shalimar the Clown. That violent act is a piece of revenge extracted by the terrorist for Ophuls' affair with his wife, a beautiful Kashmiri dancer, years before. Rushdie weaves an extraordinarily vivid story of a global clash of cultures, describing the rich beauty of life in Kashmir with a fidelity that makes readers feel they are there.

Salman Rushdie, the author of "The Satanic Verses," who has lived in hiding for nearly a decade as the object of an open-ended Islamic death sentence, was married in secret on Thursday in the Hamptons on Long Island.The details of the wedding were not given, but Andrew Wylie, Rushdie's agent, said yesterday, "Elizabeth and Salman Rushdie are happy to confirm that they were married on Thursday, Aug. 28, in a small ceremony."Newspaper reporters in London, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the new Mrs. Rushdie, whose maiden name is being withheld to protect her safety, is a poet who had collaborated with Rushdie on an anthology of modern Indian writing.

Werner Aspenstrom,78, the poet who resigned from the academy that chooses the Nobel literature prize winner amid a controversy over Salman Rushdie, has died, the Swedish news agency TT reported Saturday in Stockholm, Sweden. The news agency gave no details.In 1989, he was one of three members to resign from the Swedish Academy. His two colleagues said they quit to protest the academy's weak response to the death order that Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued against Mr. Rushdie. The ayatollah called Mr. Rushdie's novel, "The Satanic Verses," blasphemous to Islam.

Despite his recent series of public -- determinedly public -- appearances, Indian-born British novelist Salman Rushdie must realize that danger stalks him still. He is rightly suspicious of what he calls the "charm offensive" by Iranian officials who say their government no longer intends to carry out the fatwa issued against Mr. Rushdie seven years ago by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. (That death sentence, accompanied by a $1 million bounty, was handed down for the alleged slanders of Islam in the novel, "The Satanic Verses."