Salman Rushdie at Jaipur Literature Festival 2012

Yes, Salman Rushdie will be a part of the Jaipur Literature Festival - 2012 finally! Don't believe it? Believe it or not, this is what is true. True that Rushdie won't be physically present, But he will be addressing the festival through video conferencing at 3:34 pm IST on Tuesday; January 24, 2012. He has been venting out his anger through his tweets. He is outraged by the information that he received the death threat. He is believed to have learnt that the death alert was fake. He has also given a statement to the Press that the story was concocted by the Rajasthan Police. Earlier he was told that some Mumbai assassins from the underworld had been hired to kill him. But these reports were not owned by the Mumbai police as according to them they had received no such input. With the controversy refusing to die down, rather advancing with the leaving of the four authors,Hari Kunzru, Amitava Kumar, Jeet Thayil and Ruchir Joshi, who had read excerpts from Rushdie's book 'Satanic Verses' as a mark of protest; Rushdie has agreed for video linking from New York to the venue of the Festival.

Rushdie and Jaipur Literature Festival 2012 - an Afterword

Rushdie controversy instead of dying down, seems to be growing with each passing day. The latest development has been that the four authors (Hari Kunzru, Amitava Kumar, Jeet Thayil and Ruchir Joshi), who read excerpts from Salman Rushdie's controversial book 'Satanic Verses' as a mark of protest, have left the Jaipur Literature Festival - 2012 midway, with the organizers asking them to leave as an aftermath of a threat of arrest of those authors. William Dalrymple, one of the organizers of the Festival has confirmed this. With a view to clarify the organizers' stance, he said that they didn't know that reading from the book was an arrestable offence. Probably he had an undercurrent of satire too in saying that! Asaduddin Owaisi, a Member of Parliament and president of Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) has voiced his demand of arresting those four 'erring' authors. He has been quoted as saying, "Reading from a banned book is a deliberate provocation and proof that the festival is a forum for Islam bashing". Let's see how the events turn next!

Rushdie and Jaipur Literature Festival 2012

Amitava Kumar and Hari Kunzru reading out from 'Satanic Verses'

 

 

 

Photo Courtesy: India Today

There was a clear cut proof of the protest of the authors over Salman Rushdie issue. The controversial author of 'Satanic Verses', Rushdie had announced that he won't be attending the Festival. The literary community had already been expressing their anger over the protests against Rushdie. But two of the authors attending the Jaipur Literature Festival 2012, Hari Kunzru and Amitava Kumar, had their ingenuous way of protesting. They read out portions of 'Satanic Verses' in their session. Kunzru clearly declared in a tweet that he was doing this to defy bigots and the shoe-throwers. They also quoted Rushdie's tweet in which he had thanked the two authors for showing such a gesture. A while later two more authors joined the stream, namely, Jeet Thayil and Ruchir Joshi. So we can say that Rushdie is present even while being absent for this literary extravaganza!

Booker of Bookers - 'Midnight's Children'

Salman Rushdie’s ‘Midnight’s Children’, the 27 year old was rejuvenated recently, although it never grew old enough to be forgotten. It was first awarded the Booker Prize in 1981, the year in which it was written. Before being awarded the Booker of Bookers in 2008, it was selected for the same award on the 25th anniversary of Booker Prize in the year 1993. This time it was on the occasion of the 40th anniversary. This award was conferred upon Rushdie after his book was chosen from among a list of 41 books (previous award winners) nominated for the award. ‘Midnight’s Children’ is a post-colonial story about partition of India. Among other strong contenders was J.M. Coetzee’s ‘Disgrace’.