Rushdie to pen down memoirs of his days hiding the death fatwa

New York, Feb 24 (PTI) Booker Award Indian-origin
novelist Salman Rushdie has said he plans to pen down his
experiences of a decade hiding a death 'fatwa' from the
Iranian clergy.
The novelist of 'The Satanic Verses' fame unfolded his
plans to write about his dark days under death threat at
Atlanta's Emory University where an exhibit of his personal
papers opened on Friday.
Rushdie, 62, was forced into hiding in 1989 for a
decade after Iran's late spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini
ordered Muslims to kill him for his book 'The Satanic Verses'
terming it as an insult to Islam. The Iranian government said
in 1989 that it no longer supported the 'fatwa' but could not
rescind it.
"It's my story and at some point it does need to get
told," Rushdie told a press conference prior to the opening of
his exhibits.
"My instinct is that point is getting closer, I think
when it was in the cardboard boxes and dead computers, it
would have been very difficult, but now its all organised,"
the novelist and author of the runaway bestseller 'Midnight's
Children' said.
Islamic groups still continue to lodge protest against
the famed author who was knighted in 2007, but Rushdie said
the death 'fatwa' is now only more of a rhetoric than a
threat. More PTI