Playboy Interview: Salman Rushdie

It reads like a scene out of an Ian Fleming novel: First, there's a phone call. "When you arrive in London," the voice at the other end warns, "an agent of the special branch will contact you. He will instruct you where and when the meeting will take place."

Then, in London, there's a second call. It's the special agent from Scotland Yard. "Please be at this address at two P.M. tomorrow," he says, adding with typical British understatement, "We presume you will be alone."

At the designated address, the special agent, dressed in a nondescript gray sports coat, asks for identification and does a quick search for weapons. "I'm sure you understand," he says. "We can't be too careful."

But this isn't fiction. This is real life---Salman Rushdie's real life. For the past seven years, it's been Scotland Yard's job to keep Rushdie alive, as the result of a $5 million bounty that was placed on his head by fanatic Muslims.

Rushdie has been a marked man since the publication of this 1988 novel "The Satanic Verses." The novel attracted praise and prizes (including Britain's Whitbread award as the year's best novel), but two chapters, in which Rushdie re-creates seminal events in the history of the Muslim religion, incurred the wrath of Islamic leaders around the world. Those chapters involve the prophet Muhammad. Included with the retelling of sacred history are extravagant splashes of sex and fantasy. Pious Muslims believe the Koran to be the word of God as dictated by the archangel Gabriel through Muhammad. It's believed to have been written, perfect and unaltered, by the prophet's scribes. But in the dreams of one of Rushdie's characters, a scribe makes a deliberate mistake in the transcription in order to determine how divine Muhammad is. When the prophet reads over the text, the mistake goes unnoticed. The book was banned in India, Pakistan, Egypt and South Africa.

In January 1989 an angry Muslim crowd in Bradford, England burned a copy of the book. A month later, six people were killed in anti-Rushdie riots in Islamabad, Pakistan. The British Embassy in Karachi was bombed (and a Pakistani guard killed) and more than 100 were injured during a demonstration in Dacca, Bangladesh. It was on Valentine's Day 1989 that Rushdie learned Iran's Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini had ordered him killed. The book's publisher tried to diffuse the death sentence (called a fatwa) with a statement that the author had not meant to insult the Muslim people. But the ayatollah responded with his own announcement: "It is incumbent on every Muslim to employ everything he has got, his life and his wealth, to send Rushdie to hell." A price was put on his head: $1 million, which has been upped to more than $5 million.

Rushdie went into hiding and the book was pulled from shelves---even, at first, in America. More violence followed. Two bookstores in Berkeley, California were firebombed. An Arab terrorist accidentally blew himself up in a Paddington hotel before he was able to attack Rushdie. There were a series of expulsions from Britain of other Iranians who were suspected of plotting against the author. Finally, Rushdie's Japanese translator was murdered, his Italian translator was injured by a knife-wielding assailant at his Milan apartment and his Norwegian publisher, a close friend, barely survived a shooting.

Scotland Yard, called in to protect him, moved Rushdie from one safe house to another. At first he wasn't allowed to see anyone, including family and friends. His wife, the writer Marianne Wiggins, who had originally gone into hiding with him, left. A year later they were divorced. Rushdie was devastated by his new situation. As a writer, he says he was used to solitude, but he missed his freedom and ordinary life: "walking down a street, browsing in a bookshop, going to a grocery store or a movie." He couldn't leave the house without making elaborate preparations and he couldn't travel. (British Airways and other carriers refused to allow him on their planes because, they claimed, their employees and passengers would be endangered.)

Meanwhile, most writers and many politicians supported him, but some prominent voices dissented, even if they were critical of the death sentence. Novelist John le Carré criticized Rushdie for inviting more bloodshed by his refusal to withdraw the book. Roald Dahl denounced Rushdie as "a dangerous opportunist" and Germaine Greer reportedly called him "a megalomaniac." Wiggins, Rushdie's then estranged wife, told the "Sunday Times," "All of us who love him, who were devoted to him, who were friends of his, wish that the man had been as great as the event. He's not." (Wiggins later denied the interview ever took place.) New York's John Cardinal O'Connor and Britain's then chief rabbi, Lord Immanuel Jakobovits, deplored what they saw as an insult to Islam. Far more surprising, former president Jimmy Carter wrote in "The New York Times" that, although he condemned the fatwa, Western leaders should let the world know that "there is no endorsement of the insult to the sacred belief of our Muslim friends."

Most writers, however, supported Rushdie and his right to free speech. Norman Mailer, Milan Kundera, William Styron and Czeslaw Milosz were among those who appealed to world leaders to pressure Iran. Even clerks in American bookstores rallied to his defense, insisting that their employers carry "The Satanic Verses" despite the fact that it put them at risk.

Meanwhile, in hiding, Rushdie became desperate. At one point, in 1990, he attempted to make peace by announcing he had become a believing Muslim, but his conversion was short-lived.

When Rushdie made a secret trip to the U.S. in 1992, he was shunned by President George Bush. He fared far better in 1993 when President Bill Clinton hosted him at the White House.

The historic meeting came about after a full-court press by higher-ups in the Clinton administration, including George Stephanopoulos, and pressure from Mailer, Styron and Arthur Miller. Other advisors felt a meeting would be a mistake, and members of the National Security Council expressed concern that Rushdie's visit could radicalize anti-American sentiment and jeopardize the Middle East peace process. At the final hour, the president was convinced to meet with Rushdie, who was ushered into the White House for a brief huddle.

The fallout began immediately. The head of Iran's judiciary announced that President Clinton had become "the most hated person before all Muslims of the world." Clinton, reportedly surprised by the intensity of the response, attempted to placate his critics, saying he "meant no disrespect" to Muslims.

Regardless, Clinton's support (and support from Britain's John Major) helped Rushdie push other leaders to pressure Iran with sanctions and negotiations. Now the European Union has taken up the cause. Rushdie's case has been brought up at many levels of meetings with Iranian officials, and its peaceful resolution is a condition for normalizing relationships between Western nations and Iran. There have been signs that the fatwa may be revoked, though the Iranians have refused to rescind it officially.

After his first two years in hiding, Rushdie began to write again, saying, "If I can't write, then, in a way, the attack has been successful." He has published "East, West," a book of short stories, and a children's book called "Haroun and the Sea of Stories," which received excellent reviews. In this fanciful story, imagination is the enemy of authoritarian rulers.

Besides writing, Rushdie began to use his unique position to fight for free speech and to champion other writers who have been targeted because of their ideas. Showing up unannounced at events, he has spoken out about Turkish, Nigerian, Chinese and Algerian writers who have been imprisoned or otherwise persecuted for their views. He has supported Taslima Nasrin, a Bangladeshi physician, newspaper columnist and author, who is under death threats from Muslim clerics and faces criminal charges from the government for allegedly criticizing the Koran.

Rushdie began work on an epic new novel set in India. It's a country he knows well---he was born in Bombay in 1947, just a few months before India won its independence and the subcontinent was partitioned into India and Pakistan. Despite that backdrop, Rushdie says he had an uneventful childhood until he reached 14, when he was sent to school in England and first encountered racism.

Like his businessman father, Rushdie attended King's College, Cambridge, where he majored in history and was involved in theater. He graduated in 1968 and joined his parents, who, as Muslims, had emigrated to Karachi, Pakistan. He wrote a teleplay adaptation of Edward Albee's "Zoo Story" for the new government-operated television station, but it was censored for containing the word pork. Felling stifled, he returned to England.

Back in England he wrote ad copy and dabbled in experimental theater. He completed his first novel, "Grimus," in 1973. It received good reviews, but it was his next novel that brought him international acclaim. "Midnight's Children" won the 1981 Booker McConnell Prize, Britain's most prestigious literary award. It is an epic story that focuses on the hopes born with Indian independence. That book was followed by "Shame," a satire based on Pakistan, which further established Rushdie as one of the reigning "world storytellers," as "The New York Times" described him.

Rushdie's first marriage ended in divorce in 1987. He has a son from that marriage, Zafar, now 15. His marriage to Wiggins was reportedly in trouble even before the fatwa.

Recently, Rushdie has taken the first steps toward coming out of seclusion with several advertised appearances. "It's been seven years since I have been able to tell my readers where I would be and where they could come to talk to me. It's nice to be back," he says. Still, Scotland Yard's presence is always apparent---there are metal detectors, guards and bomb specialists at all of Rushdie's public appearances.

True to Rushdie's history, his latest novel, "The Moor's Last Sigh," has already caused headlines. This time, members of Shiv Sena, a militant right-wing Hindu group based in Bombay, have called for the book to be banned because of a character who is an obvious parody of their leader, political cartoonist-turned-Hindu nationalist Balasaheb Thackeray. While the book has been withheld in most of India, its publisher has managed to forestall an official ban. None of this has stopped the book from climbing bestseller lists in every country where it has been released (it arrived in bookstores in America in January).

Playboy tapped Contributing EditorDavid Sheff,who has conducted dozens of "Playboy Interviews," to speak with Rushdie. Here is Sheff's report:

"Despite the cloak-and-dagger routine required to meet him, Rushdie didn't appear the least bit nervous or concerned. He cares deeply about many issues---besides his fiction, he has written essays on many topics---but his foremost concern, for obvious reasons, is the right of writers to express themselves without repression or the fear of reprisals. While we were speaking about these issues, there was a knock on the door. An associate told Rushdie the news that Ken Saro-Wiwa, a Nigerian writer and dissident who had been arrested and sentenced to death for a trumped-up murder charge, had been executed. It was a bitterly sad moment. Rushdie, who had that week written a speech imploring world leaders to do whatever was required to save Saro-Wiwa, was near tears. After some time passed, he spoke with palpable anger. 'What must we do before no writer will be able to be murdered for writing?' he asked. 'What must we do so that this never happens again?'"

[Q] Playboy: How have these years in hiding changed you?

[A] Rushdie: When I was younger, I was quite excitable. I waved my arms a lot and talked too much. I was more argumentative. I feel calmer because of a sense of who I am, a sense of what is in my heart. It comes from facing the big stuff---facing the great realities of life and death, and who you are and why you did what you did. You find out what you think about yourself when your innermost core is under attack. The worst moment came in 1990 when I lost who I was.

[Q] Playboy: That was the time you announced you had converted to Islam. Had you actually converted or were you trying to placate those who were threatening your life?

[A] Rushdie: Not so much to placate them, but to show to the people who viewed me as some kind of terrible enemy that I wasn't one. It mostly had to do with despair and disorientation. I had lost my strength and felt completely bereft. Many of my friends pointed out that it was the stupidest thing I had ever done in my life. But I had hit bottom, and maybe it was necessary to hit bottom.

[Q] Playboy: Was hitting bottom brought on by the fear of being killed?

[A] Rushdie: No. It was brought on by having done something I didn't believe in. I had given up who I was. I could no longer speak if I had been converted. I was supposed to be reverent, but didn't know how to be. I didn't know how to be devout, for God's sake. But by depriving myself of what was, in fact, my nature, I showed myself what my nature was.

[Q] Playboy: And so you therefore recanted your conversion.

[A] Rushdie: Yes. I made strenuous steps to get out of the false position and immediately felt clearer about everything. From that point on, I felt that I would fight for what I believed, and what I believed was what I was.

[Q] Playboy: Had you initially been reluctant to fight back against the fatwa?

[A] Rushdie: It's hard to exaggerate the extent of the political and public pressure put on me not to fight back. That's one thing that had brought me to such a low point. I had listened to the purveyors of public opinion. Every time I tried to defend my work, I was accused of making trouble again. The only thing I was ever supposed to say in those days was that I was sorry. But I didn't feel sorry. I felt as if the crime was being committed against me, not by me. And so it was. I decided I would speak out and fight, and I decided I would not convince everyone. It was a great liberation to realize you don't have to convince everyone---in fact, you cannot. I decided I would not apologize and would write what I write. If you don't like it, the hell with you.

[Q] Playboy: Before the announcement of the death sentence, there was the banning of the book and other protests. Did you feel in danger?

[A] Rushdie: No, but things began to change when the book was burned. Something exploded in my head. I've never been so angry in my life. The image of that burning book enraged me in my deepest places. They nailed it to a post, then set fire to it. They crucified and then burned it. Standing next to the burning book in a famous photograph was this little man looking so proud of himself, so smug, so righteous. I had rarely seen so ugly a photograph. Until that point I felt that my best defense was the normal arguments---to explain the book, to get people to read it. For a long time I took that position: The book---i.e., the work of art---speaks for itself. But when the work of art was nailed to a post and set on fire, it occurred to me that maybe I should speak for the work of art. That is when I began to argue and to confront various Muslims involved in the attack on the book. But although I was angry as hell, I had no sense of danger.

[Q] Playboy: When did you first hear about the fatwa?

[A] Rushdie: I got a call on my way out the door one morning. I had arranged previously to do an interview on CBS television. Journalists asked me about it and I was bewildered. One journalist said, "Oh, don't worry about this Khomeini character. He condemns the president to death every Friday. Forget it." And I thought, Oh well. Maybe that's right. Maybe this is just hot air and it will blow away by tomorrow. But it didn't blow away. It became clear that it wasn't some rhetorical flourish.

[Q] Playboy: You quickly issued an apology.

[A] Rushdie: Yes, but I didn't write it. At that point, people involved with the British government---I won't say who---informed me that they were talking with the Iranian government. I was given to understand the situation would be resolved if I would sign a statement they wrote. It was constructed to get a quick fix. At that point everybody desired the quickest fix possible. Remember, I had never been in any position like this before. When the government says to you, "OK, here is the deal: You make this statement and the death sentence will be canceled tomorrow and everything will go back to normal," you do it. Especially if the alternative is that you cannot go home or see your child. You have no idea what the hell is going on. You think you might be dead in a day or two. So this statement was put out in my name.

[Q] Playboy: But Khomeini refused to reverse the order and a price was put on your head.

[A] Rushdie: Yes. It's an odd thing to have a price on your head. At the same time, though, the reward has never been a real problem. The real threat has never come from people who are trying to claim the money.

[Q] Playboy: Does the real threat come from Muslim fanatics?

[A] Rushdie: Not them, either. The only real threat has come from the Iranian government itself, and it is the Iranian government that remains the danger. It would be foolish not to recognize that there is a small risk from a fanatic. But there has been no evidence, over this whole period, of any real threat from anyone other than the government.

[Q] Playboy: Yet Khomeini said that "it is incumbent on every Muslim" to kill you.

[A] Rushdie: Nobody was interested. Iranians have tried to get other Muslim countries involved, but nobody else wants to. Even the hard-line Islamic states such as Sudan are not interested. The Islamic leader there, Turabi, made explicit statements to the general public that the fatwa is against Islam. I mean, it's not that they like me, but they don't believe I should be killed.

[Q] Playboy: Who in the Iranian government is behind the attacks?

[A] Rushdie: People under the direction of the Iranian intelligence ministry.

[Q] Playboy: Why was the fatwa continued after the ayatollah died?

[A] Rushdie: It was political. Partly, Iran wanted an easier target after its defeat by Saddam Hussein---though I didn't turn out to be an easy enough target apparently. Most of all, the Iranian leaders thought they would strengthen their position as leaders of the Muslim world if they killed this enemy of their people. Yet now many Muslim intellectuals and academics have changed their opinions of the book; they no longer view it as blasphemous. The fact is, the reason I did so much arguing in the beginning is because the book, considered properly, would not even have been banned. The book was banned and the fatwa was ordered because of rumors.

[Q] Playboy: What did you mean when you said, early after the fatwa, that you wished you had written a book more critical of Islam?

[A] Rushdie: It struck me that a religious leader who arbitrarily condemns people to death and is willing to resort to international terrorism to carry out the sentences probably merits a little criticism.

[Q] Playboy: When the death sentence was announced, did you go into complete isolation?

[A] Rushdie: Yes.

[Q] Playboy: We read that you became a television addict---watching endless Dynasty reruns.

[A] Rushdie: You say things to journalists as a joke and they become part of the myth. It's true that it was very difficult to see anybody for the first couple years. Later I was told by people who came into Scotland Yard that the degree to which my freedom was circumscribed at the beginning was completely unnecessary.

[Q] Playboy: Why was it unnecessary?

[A] Rushdie: They don't believe that I needed to be so sequestered in order to be kept safe. There is a difference between protecting people and concealing them. For a long time I was offered concealment rather then protection. This has slowly changed, partly because of my argument that if I am seen to have been locked away for the rest of my life, the aggressors have won---the fatwa has worked. They didn't have to kill me if they succeeded in silencing me. It was a guarantee that the technique would be used again. Make a threat and get the other side to shut up their own people. That would be dreadful.

[Q] Playboy: When you did go out, were you paranoid, looking over your shoulder?

[A] Rushdie: The opposite, really. I have spent a great deal of time reassuring other people. I can't tell you how many newspaper articles there are about me in which the journalist gets very upset when a nearby car backfires. The backfiring car is a kind of motif for these people.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't you ever jump when you heard one?

[A] Rushdie: No. In the stories about these backfiring cars, it's always mentioned that I did not twitch. One of the writers called this denial. It was not. It was knowing the sound of a backfiring car. So I spent a lot of my time telling other people that there was nothing to worry about.

[Q] Playboy: Yet there was something to worry about.

[A] Rushdie: When you know what there is to worry about, you also know what there isn't to worry about. If you're talking about a professional hit, you know you are safe in certain situations. I came to understand what was risky and what wasn't. It was not risky to be eating in a café, because terrorists know that the risk of being identified and captured is great. We are safe in this room, because even if there were a guy with a submachine gun standing in the street outside, he would not enter this building to attack me, because he doesn't know what he would meet. There is zero risk here.

[Q] Playboy: Did you have nightmares?

[A] Rushdie: No. I did think in the beginning that I probably would die quite soon. You live with that. Yet the question of fear was not an issue. There was initially shock, which was followed by bewilderment and by a kind of loss of balance. Then this was replaced by a kind of single-mindedness, resolve and determination. Fear has not been relevant.

[Q] Playboy: Did you ever consider changing your identity?

[A] Rushdie: It was never offered and I would not have been interested.

[Q] Playboy: Did you ever use a disguise?

[A] Rushdie: There was one ridiculous occasion when they offered me a wig. I looked ridiculous, but I decided to try it out on a London street. I got out of a car in the wig and there were all these stares and comments: "There is Salman Rushdie in a wig." It was so ludicrous that I determined I would never succumb to that kind of thing again. I wore a hat and occasionally dark glasses and I began to venture out a bit more.

[Q] Playboy: British Airways and some other airlines would not allow you to fly on their planes. Is that still true?

[A] Rushdie: It's getting better. The fact is, I've flown all over the world on all sorts of airlines and nobody has ever had the faintest bit of trouble as a result.

[Q] Playboy: Do you understand their fears that there would perhaps be some nervous passengers?

[A] Rushdie: Well, nothing has happened on the 17 different airlines I've flown, so I don't understand it, no. When people recognize me on airplanes they are incredibly friendly. They have their picture taken with me and ask me to sign their menus. The fact is, airlines are supposed to have good security precautions and either they do or they don't. When I get on a plane, just like when any other person gets on a plane, it is made certain that proper precautions are taken. So actually it's safer on planes.

[Q] Playboy: What was your reaction when your translators and publishers were attacked?

[A] Rushdie: I was devastated. It was appalling and tragic. It happened long after the initial declaration of the fatwa, too, so there had been a sense that surely it was safe now. These attacks showed that to be untrue. It was terrible and so senseless. In each case, the book was already published. It wasn't that they were going to shoot the translator and stop him from translating the book; it was finished. So what was it for?

[Q] Playboy: Did you feel responsible?

[A] Rushdie: I did---I knew I was the one who was meant to be murdered. It was such a tragedy, such a waste. At the same time, when they attacked William Nygaard, my publisher in Norway of 15 years who had become a good friend, I was able to call him in the hospital. The first thing he said was that he didn't want me to feel responsible. He wanted me to know he was extremely proud to be the publisher of The Satanic Verses and he would publish it again if given the choice. But you cannot help but feel responsible. He hates to be called heroic, because he says he was just doing his job. So were the other publishers and many other individuals. Immediately after this began, some of the bookstore chains in America pulled the book off their shelves, claiming they were protecting their staffs. But their staffs refused to be protected in that way. That act of heroism got the book back on the shelves. So did the actions of the writer Stephen King, which people don't know about. A lot of literary writers received credit for the way they stood up for me---the Susan Sontags and Don DeLillos and Julian Barneses. But King has not. According to people inside the book chains, he was incensed and did a great deal of arguing on behalf of The Satanic Verses. He went so far as to threaten the chains that he would pull his books off their shelves if my book was not on them. He also apparently talked to other best-selling writers to get their support.

[Q] Playboy: Was King a friend?

[A] Rushdie: I have never met him. But I certainly owe him one.

[Q] Playboy: Amid your many supporters, there were also some surprising critics.

How do you respond to them?

[A] Rushdie: Whom are you referring to?

[Q] Playboy: John le Carré, Roald Dahl, Germaine Greer.

[A] Rushdie: That's quite a roll call, isn't it? If those people were all together in a room, I'd prefer to be in a different one, OK? But there were so many supporters. It's worth emphasizing that had it not been for their extraordinary campaign and support, I would very possibly not have found the strength to face this thing. People rose to the occasion in extraordinary ways. Some were my friends, but many were not. I didn't know Arthur Miller when he spoke up. I didn't know Don DeLillo. I didn't know Norman Mailer. Some of the ones who were old friends of mine, including Julian Barnes, did more for me personally than I can ever say. So had it not been for this army of people getting it right, I might be more upset about the small handful who got it wrong. It may be wrong to speak ill of the dead, but Roald Dahl, for one, was a bastard. He was a dreadful, horrible old man, a racist somewhere to the right of Hitler. The only thing worse than being attacked by Dahl would be to be his friend.

[Q] Playboy: What about le Carré?

[A] Rushdie: Somehow I wasn't upset about le Carré, and I think it's because he's not a writer I cared enough about. I have a terrible feeling he may have reacted the way he did because of a review I once wrote of one of his books---a bad review.

[Q] Playboy: And Germaine Greer?

[A] Rushdie: Well, Greer has made a lifetime habit of stabbing her friends in the back, so why would she stop now? She has since claimed to have been misquoted and misunderstood, but Germaine has spent her life claiming she was misquoted and misunderstood.

[Q] Playboy: How do you respond to the attacks from the right-wing English press?

[A] Rushdie: I must say I have been more surprised by the venom in the attacks against me from non-Islamic sources than from Islamic ones. Fanatics behave like fanatics; they are acting in character. But I never expected that other people, even those whose politics were unlike mine, would take this opportunity to kick so hard when I was down. It has been a harsh lesson. I used to get upset, but I learned to take them with a grain of salt. The fact is, despite this extraordinary vendetta, my detractors have failed to convince the British public that I am a bad fellow. Whenever I go anywhere, I am invariably recognized, and people are fantastically supportive.

[Q] Playboy: One writer said that it's too bad you weren't a nice guy like John Updike. It would have been much easier to defend you.

[A] Rushdie: But I am a nice guy like John Updike. It was just easier for some people to pretend that I was not. So there was an extraordinary attempt to destroy my character, and like all the other attempts, it didn't work.

[Q] Playboy: Among the political leaders who criticized you was Jimmy Carter. Did that surprise you?

[A] Rushdie: I was shocked about Carter. However, he's since sort of made an attempt to back off that stand. I know people who asked him about it. He told them that he's a little sheepish about what was said. I never saw the text, and there is a problem of reporting that gets skewered. In this case, I am disposed to let it slide.

[Q] Playboy: Is it true that President Bush and his administration refused to meet with you or take a firm stand in your support?

[A] Rushdie: Yes I don't know why. Somebody suggested that it might have been because at that stage the Iranians knew where all the bodies were buried in the Iran-contra business. Maybe people didn't want to upset that too much.

[Q] Playboy: Did you expect a change when Clinton became president?

[A] Rushdie: There was a great change. However, it was disappointing that the Republicans viewed this through partisan eyes. Republicans as well as Democrats should be able to agree that we don't kill people because we don't like what they write.

[Q] Playboy: How difficult was it to meet Clinton?

[A] Rushdie: It took a lot of lobbying on the part of my supporters in America. John Major also helped pave the way. He believed it would be helpful if I could meet Clinton.

[Q] Playboy: Were you disappointed when Clinton seemed to waffle in his support after the meeting, almost apologizing for it?

[A] Rushdie: There was a kind of wobble, yes, but I have to say that the administration has remained very helpful. The meeting with Clinton was of enormous political consequence in Europe. It immediately unlocked all the gates to power here. Because of Clinton, seeing me stopped being uncool. Suddenly they were all queuing up to meet me---all the prime ministers and presidents. There has been a dramatic change in the position of the Iranians.

[Q] Playboy: How has it changed?

[A] Rushdie: In continuing conversations between the European Union and Iran, Iran Keeps putting up straws in the wind. They have said the fatwa will not be carried out, though they refuse to put it in writing. But the tide has changed. They have woken up to the fact that they're broke, they have no friends in the world and they need help. This issue gets in their way wherever they go. Wherever they go for meetings, they spend two thirds of the time being asked about me. And it's a pain in the neck. So they want to end this crisis, but have so far refused to sign a formal agreement.

[Q] Playboy: Perhaps they're just trying to get out of this quietly, while saving face.

[A] Rushdie: But the European Union has said that a minimum requirement to end such a large crisis is a formal agreement. I agree, because assurances from Iran mean nothing. We need a document that they can be held accountable to, not something they can deny tomorrow. I have a feeling that we may be only two or three steps away from that. Meanwhile, the situation has changed. I've been much more open recently. I've been much more open recently. I've deliberately tried to prove that the situation has changed by doing ordinary things such as book signings that are announced in advance.

[Q] Playboy: There still has been heavy security at such events.

[A] Rushdie: Not by the standards of what it was a year ago. Scotland Yard is still careful, because it has to be until it's actually settled. It is not only my safety that's an issue. If it were, I would dispense with the security precautions at this point. I am tired of being hemmed in. But Scotland Yard continues to respond to what it considers to be the worst possible case, even if the threat has lessened. And now that there have been a few successful events, its attitude has relaxed even more.

[Q] Playboy: So you feel your campaign has been successful?

[A] Rushdie: Successful, though if we get a deal with the Iranians tomorrow, I will not feel victorious. I have lost seven years of my life. I have lost the opportunity to share a lot of my son's childhood. I will never get that back. When most fathers were out in the park throwing a ball around with their children, I was not. That time is forever lost. So I won't feel victorious. I feel pleased to have been able to stand up for things I believe in. And I'm pleased this horrendous attack, which attempted to dictate what people can write and read, didn't work.

[Q] Playboy: When you were in hiding, how long did it take to begin writing again?

[A] Rushdie: I soon wrote a few book reviews as a way of showing that I'm still here, folks. Then I wrote Haroun and the Sea of Stories and then the book of short stories.

[Q] Playboy: Was it difficult to begin writing again?

[A] Rushdie: It was difficult to concentrate. There was also a great sadness in me because of what had happened to my book. I spent five years writing in the most serious way, and then had the book reduced to a series of slogans, insulted and vilified and reduced and burned. I felt, for a while, if this is what you get, it's not worth it. Thank you very much, I'd rather be a plumber. Of course that was simply an expression of misery, nothing else. Eventually I realized that I have to write; it doesn't matter what people think or say.

[Q] Playboy: Did you actually write Haroun for your son, Zafar?

[A] Rushdie: It's true that I wrote it for him. But, in the end, if you're a writer, you have to find out what your own connection to material is, why you're interested in writing it. So it became for us both---to write again, for me, and to speak to him. There was virtually nothing I could do with him then, but at least I could tell him stories.

[Q] Playboy: Was he brought to you in hiding?

[A] Rushdie: He never was. We had to protect him from the knowledge of where I was.

[Q] Playboy: At what point did you begin The Moor's Last Sigh?

[A] Rushdie: Some aspects of it have been with me for a long time---the setting of Granada, for instance. Also, the character of Aurora, the mother, had gradually grown in my head. The idea of inventing a painter was interesting to me, partly because it has been done so rarely in literature. I came around to Aurora after becoming friendly with a whole bunch of contemporary Indian painters. In them, I found affinities to my own ideas and work. It became easy for me to imagine myself in the skin of such a painter.

[Q] Playboy: Do you agree that the central theme in the novel is love---getting it and most of all, losing it?

[A] Rushdie: Yes, love. The love of nation, love of parents, love of child, erotic love, romantic love. In fact, this is the first time I have ever actually written sex scenes. I've always been shy about them in the past.

[Q] Playboy: Why have you been reluctant to write sex scenes?

[A] Rushdie: I think it may have to do with some kind of cultural embarrassment. Sex was something done in private. I found that when I would get to a point in a novel where the next natural moment would be sex, I would tend to have a fade-out. It was rather like that wonderful scene in Woody Allen's movie The Purple Rose of Cairo where the romantic lead comes off the cinema screen and falls in love with Mia Farrow. They kiss and she wants to proceed, but he becomes increasingly confused. She asks, "What's the matter?" and he says, "There should be a fade-out now." He doesn't know what to do next; he's never had to do it. In the world of the films that he inhabits, there are no sex scenes, only fade-outs. I recognized that problem and I decided I would actually set out to overcome that inhibition, so there are lots of sex scenes.

[Q] Playboy: Yet the sex in the book is still fairly oblique.

[A] Rushdie: I wanted to find an interesting way to do it. I find most sex scenes very boring, whether in books or movies, because you know exactly what's going to happen. At least in cinema you can look at beautiful bodies. So here the challenge was to find an interesting way to write about sex. I deliberately wrote the first sex scene comically, about some body who can't write a sex scene. He's inhibited when he is trying to describe his parents making love, as one might be. He gradually does work his way around to describing it, and so does his author, I guess. At recent appearances, I have read aloud the sequences in which Abraham and Aurora fall in love. I read the scene in which they have sex on the pepper sacks and arrive at church smelling of sex, scandalizing old ladies and perplexing and annoying the priest. I must say that it was a great pleasure to discover that people found it sexy and extremely erotic. Particularly women. To be able to speak to women about lust and sex in a way they find truthful at this moment in history---when the whole area of communication between the sexes is so fucked up---is a particular pleasure.

[Q] Playboy: Do you find that love is the central issue in most people's lives?

[A] Rushdie: Love and death. That's not an original thing to say, but yes. I'm enough of an old hippie really to believe that all you need is love. The central story of Aurora and Abraham in the book is a story of what happens when love dies. When it goes away it leaves this dreadful vortex.

[Q] Playboy: Does it have to go away?

[A] Rushdie: Passionate love, the sledgehammer love, isn't the one that usually lasts. Then, when it goes, one can be disoriented. That kind of love takes a lot of recovering from and it's easy to tumble out of control.

[Q] Playboy: Did you find your marriage to be an object lesson?

[A] Rushdie: Not necessarily my marriage---either marriage---but I have been through it. The most all-consuming love affair I ever had was not with a woman I've married. But like everyone else, I have had my experiences in love gone wrong. It would be very difficult to write about if I hadn't been through it.

[Q] Playboy: Of all of those who have attacked you, it was your wife, who had initially gone into hiding with you, who became your most bitter critic. Why?

[A] Rushdie: I think she had to invent me as a person worth leaving. Otherwise there would be a tendency to believe that she should have stood by her man in that old-fashioned way. She tried to create an image of me as being worthless, which then made it possible for her to leave with dignity.

[Q] Playboy: Otherwise it would have seemed she was abandoning ship.

[A] Rushdie: Yeah. There are a number of fictions about this period that I haven't talked about before now, but I think I just will say it. First of all, to be strictly accurate, she did not leave me. I asked her to leave. the reason I asked her to leave was that her behavior had become upsetting in ways I don't want to comment on. I preferred to be by myself, which is a mark of how upsetting it was. The idea that Marianne could not live with me because I was unable to live up to history is not true. I asked her to go away because I couldn't stand having her around. There was an enormous amount of dishonesty. There were actions that, in my view, were positively dangerous. So I ended the marriage. Since then she has attempted to construct the view that she decided to leave me, because no doubt it seems nobler. But the fact is that I discovered many things about her that were extraordinarily shocking and distasteful. I'm very glad to have seen the last of her. I feel foolish is all I can say. It is the problem of falling in love with the wrong person. Your friends tell you, but you don't see it until it is too late.

[Q] Playboy: Did that experience disenchant you with love?

[A] Rushdie: It certainly shook me. I don't deny it. There was so much dishonesty involved and I'm not a dishonest man.

[Q] Playboy: You were in particularly bizarre circumstances to be single.

[A] Rushdie: Yes. I remember going on 60 Minutes shortly after my marriage broke up. Mike Wallace rather courageously asked me what I did for sex.

[Q] Playboy: Well?

[A] Rushdie: As I told him, I was rather glad to have a break, actually. He seemed shocked by that answer. But life goes on, and I am not afraid to tell you that my sex life since then has been fine.

[Q] Playboy: How do you manage to date and have relationships?

[A] Rushdie: Let's put it like this: People should not feel sorry for me.

[Q] Playboy: There was a report that your friends were supplying you with women.

[A] Rushdie: I sued when that was printed. The paper that printed it had to pay and I gave the money to a free-speech organization. It's ludicrous, this idea that my friends were running some kind of pimping service.

[Q] Playboy: In your book, the character Aurora needs to express on canvas every thing in her life. Is that how you use writing?

[A] Rushdie: It's inevitably the case that when a writer creates another creative artist, something of the writer seeps into that creation. Why do it, otherwise? But I also hope she's more than just a writer in disguise---what Tom Wolfe called a painted word. I hope she's not just a series of painted words, because I was genuinely interested in the kind of painter she was. By the time I came to write the book, I actually knew her pictures very well---I had a clear sense of what they looked like. I just can't paint them.

[Q] Playboy: How religious was your family?

[A] Rushdie: Not very. I was brought up more or less without God. Although we were Muslim, religion was worn very lightly. I think my father would take me to the mosque twice a year, the equivalent of going to church at Christmas. We did not eat the flesh of swine, but that was about it.

[Q] Playboy: The religious people in your books are not very admirable. Conversely, secularists are generally the more moral. Is that your view?

[A] Rushdie: It is object particularly to fundamentalism, whether it's Hindu, Muslim or Christian. It's completely barren on any intellectual level. Fundamentalism purports to defend culture, but it doesn't know about the culture that it's defending. If religion is supposed to be a repository of a certain kind of truth, fundamentalism seems to me to be a denial of the truth. It is about the creation of falsehoods and goes after the worst sides of people. I'm alarmed by what's happening wherever fundamentalists rise---such as the rise of the American religious right. It is at least as dangerous as anything happening in the Third World---with more weapons, probably. I don't think Americans can afford any longer to see this as something happening to other people. It's important to understand that fundamentalism does not even pretend to be a religious movement. It is a political movement. It's about power. So watch out.

[Q] Playboy: Do you view all religion as dangerous, even the less extremist forms?

[A] Rushdie: No. I'm perfectly able to see the ability of religious systems to provide identity, a sense of community and belonging, a sense of hope and comfort and even a kind of moral structure in people's lives. But these past years I've been given an object lesson in the ability of religion to do some other things, which are not so likable. I've experienced the capacity of religion to do harm. So while I am completely fascinated, even mesmerized by the history of religion and religious myths, I can't stand the system of rules. This inevitably filters into my books, though I have never seen myself as a religious novelist. There are others for whom religion is the central issue. I am instead a writer of memories, a playful writer, a writer who tries to look at history, a writer with some kind of central linguistic ambition. And I see myself as one who wrestles with his times and tries to make sense of them. Even The Satanic Verses isn't a novel about religion, but about migration.

[Q] Playboy: What do you remember most about being sent to England at the age of 14? You've said it was the first time you were aware of being Indian.

[A] Rushdie: Yes. Before that, speaking English and knowing the culture quite well, I never expected to feel foreign in England. When I arrived, however, I couldn't quite work out why I was meant to feel foreign. There was racism from some of the boys, though not from the staff at the school. I had three things against me, as far as the students were concerned: I was foreign, intelligent and bad at games. It was a triple whammy.

[Q] Playboy: Did you know you wanted to be a writer by then?

[A] Rushdie: I knew I wanted to write when I was very young.

[Q] Playboy: After college, while writing your first novels, you worked as an ad copywriter. What were some of your advertisements?

[A] Rushdie: The slogan that people hang most around my neck is one used for cream cakes: naughty but nice. There was also a campaign for a chocolate bar called Aero, which is full of bubbles, for which I invented a whole series of bubble words: Adorabubble, delectabubble, incredibubble, etc.

[Q] Playboy: From the outset, did you plan to write political novels?

[A] Rushdie: Only indirectly. The thing that made me a writer was the fact that I came from over there---that is, India---and I ended up over here, in England, and I had to make sense of that. I had a bundle of stories I brought with me, my literary baggage, and I wanted to tell those stories, and have those stories lead to other stories. Part of the stories is the way history and people's lives rub up together. We find ourselves in a position in which public life often determines our fates in ways that have nothing to do with what sort of people we are. Economics is destiny, politics is destiny, terrorism is destiny.

[Q] Playboy: What's it like to write about India from exile?

[A] Rushdie: There's no doubt that one of the great losses in my life was having to stay away. It's the only passage of seven years in my life in which I have not been in India. It feels like losing a limb. So writing the new book was a journey home, the only way of going. Writing from exile is emotionally charged, however. I was conscious of the trap, which is sentimentalization on the one hand, or exaggeration on the other. I was desperately anxious not to commit those crimes. The consequence of being removed from India allowed or released in me the flood of feelings that shapes this novel. There is also a sense of personal loss. and sadness, which I think is a constant of what happened.

[Q] Playboy: Is it just too dangerous for you to travel to India?

[A] Rushdie: India is not Iran. It's not a fundamentalist country. I'm quite popular in India. If I just turned up in Bombay, more people would be pleased than not pleased. The reason I haven't been back has to do with my worries about being politically exploited. There are a small number of Muslim politicians who might see it as a way to get some more mileage out of the situation. Frankly, speaking as a political football, I've been kicked around enough. I just couldn't bear going there and suddenly encountering a new round of demonstrations, etc. Any Indian politician can create a demonstration on the street in five minutes.

[Q] Playboy: Are you convinced they would?

[A] Rushdie: They would. Perhaps when the dust settles after the election year, we'll see. I feel quite optimistic about going back to India.

[Q] Playboy: But not to Iran, we imagine.

[A] Rushdie: I've been to Iran. I don't need to go again.

[Q] Playboy: Did you find it difficult to write about modern India while being away?

[A] Rushdie: I carry India around with me. I can't escape India. I know how people think and talk and feel. If I read in the newspaper about a political event, I know how people will react. I know how all different classes of the country, all different communities, will react. In that sense I don't feel disconnected, because I can immediately play the scenario in my head. At least so far I've felt that.

[Q] Playboy: Are you optimistic about the current state of India?

[A] Rushdie: There were three pillars of independent India. The first was democracy---the commitment to a democratic political system despite the incredible difficulties of having a democracy in a country of that size. The second was the protectionist economy---the government nationalizing everything in sight and putting up tariff barriers against the imported rival goods, and so on. The third pillar was secularism, which grew out of the great violence of the partition period. It was quite clear to the founding generation of politicians that, in order to prevent a repetition of the violence, it was important to separate church and state so that no religion, no matter how numerically superior it might be, could have a constitutional advantage over others. Broadly speaking, that is India that people of my generation, the generation of independence, were sold. we grew up buying that India and liking it and feeling its air free to breathe. But now I feel that all those pillars are tottering. The secularist principle is being strongly opposed by increasingly powerful political parties that talk about rewriting the constitution. The second pillar is gone---the socialist-protectionist economic pillar has been replaced by a free-market economy, which is transporting India at a most extraordinary speed. Now the pillar of democracy itself has been shaken. There has been an arrival of political leaders who overtly act democratic but who set themselves up as more or less absolute fascistic leaders in their states. People are disillusioned with public life. This has become so extreme that there seems to be an appeal of more authoritarian forms of leadership, which seem to promise more discipline, less crookery and so on. So this is the historical climate that has replaced the India I grew up in. Let's say I'm worried.

[Q] Playboy: Is your latest book banned in India?

[A] Rushdie: What has happened is something more Indian than a straightforward ban. A couple of members of the right in Bombay got annoyed on behalf of Bal Thackeray, the leader of the Shiv Sena Party. He himself hasn't uttered a word other than to allege that he has not read it. As a result of it all, however, some parts of customs apparently have imposed a block on importing further copies. They say they're doing this because a ban is being considered, though they don't say by whom. When they're asked why it's under consideration, they don't answer the letters. At the moment this is an informal stoppage, which is not being called a ban. This is the Indian technique, to wrap things up in red tape. But we are cutting through this. The Indian publishers, along with the booksellers' association, have taken the government to court. The government must show cause why it is doing this. If it cannot, and the general view is that it cannot, it will have to lift the blockade. India is still enough of a free society that it has an independent judiciary that is impatient with government bans on novels. Especially when the only reason for the blockade is that an opposition politician doesn't like it.

[Q] Playboy: You were, of course, satirizing Thackeray, right?

[A] Rushdie: If you are going to write about a Bombay-based Hindu extremist party, then inevitably the Shiv Sena comes to mind, and Thackeray is the leader of that party, so obviously the character in the book has something to do with Thackeray. But it's not all Thackeray. Another model for the character was Russia's Vladimir Zhirinovsky. If I had wanted to write about Thackeray specifically, I would have included him in the book. In Midnight's Children, when I wanted to criticize some deeds of Indira Gandhi's, I introduced a character called Indira Gandhi in the book.

[Q] Playboy: And, indeed, Gandhi sued you for it.

[A] Rushdie: Yes. There was one sentence in the book where I repeated something that was often repeated about her: that she was responsible for her father's death. She sued about that sentence. But then she died and the suit became moot.

[Q] Playboy: In Moor's, you have Aurora, though she loathes Indira Gandhi, very upset when she died.

[A] Rushdie: I was upset. Since the emergency I was a strong opponent of Mrs. Gandhi, but on the day she was shot, I was bereft. It was such a hideous thing to have happened. In a piece I wrote about it, I said that everybody who loved India would be in mourning that day. And Mrs. Gandhi was a remarkable individual with great personal courage. It so happened that she went down a political road that I objected to. Like Margaret Thatcher---I've been a lifelong political opponent of hers in a passionate way, but that doesn't mean that I can't respect her. And, clearly, no matter how you feel about someone's politics, you must be horrified in the face of an assassination.

[Q] Playboy: How were you affected when you heard about the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin?

[A] Rushdie: It reminded me of what my parents had told me about learning the news of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. At the time there was a very heightened tension between Hindu and Muslim communities in India. They said that the instant fear was learning the name of the assassin. By learning the name, you would know which community the person came from. They would know if it were a Muslim name. If it were, the consequences would be absolutely horrible. So they went home and locked the doors and waited. And when the name of the Killer was released, and it was a Hindu name, their first reaction was a sense of relief. It didn't lessen their sense of the tragedy, but they were relieved that it wasn't a Muslim. Similarly, when I heard that Rabin had been shot, as horrified as I was, my first thought was, What's the name of the killer? Had it been an Arab name, goodness knows what would have happened. When we heard it was a Jewish name, that, of course, unleashed another kind of horror. But I can't deny that my first reaction was relief, because it would have harmed the peace process immeasurably if the murderer had been an Arab.

[Q] Playboy: How do you feel about having become a symbol of freedom of speech?

[A] Rushdie: I have no interest in being a symbol. I want to be a writer, and that's all. I do want to be a good writer and one who engages in public themes, as well as private ones. I wanted to have my say---to be part of that conversation. But I didn't want to become some kind of statue.

[Q] Playboy: But isn't there, in your work, an intent to stir up trouble, to incite?

[A] Rushdie: It depends on what you mean. I think all good art is provocative. I don't particularly like the idea of demonstrations in foreign cities---that wasn't something I wanted---but I do want art to stir you up, to make you think and feel. I think the reason for being a creative artist of any sort is that you want to be a part of the conversation: I see this. What do you think? Here's how I feel. Do you feel it? That's what the work of art does to you. If it doesn't, it's inert. If it does, it's provocative. Certainly I would hope that everything I wrote provoked people. But that doesn't, it's inert. If it does, it's provocative. Certainly I would hope that everything I wrote provoked people. But that doesn't mean provoke them to anger or violence. It can mean provoke their sense of duty or their sense of horror or their sense of humor. It's true that I have a fairly emphatic view of the world and I express it. Inevitably it means a lot of people don't like it. That just comes with the territory. Midnight's Children was written in the aftermath of the Bangladesh war, in which mass genocide was committed by the Pakistani army. Immediately afterward, everybody denied the genocide had (concluded on page 165)Salman Rushdie(continued from page 62) taken place. It also came in the aftermath of the emergency rule of Mrs. Gandhi, when there were all kinds of atrocities. Once again, afterward a lot of the evidence was destroyed and the experience was denied. If I'm trying to offer a truthful picture of what happened in those times, remembering what happened inevitably becomes politicized. Just writing down the story of the mass graves found in Bangladesh by the liberating army or the people who got their testicles cut off in various prisons around north India brings you into conflict with the authority figures who denied that those things happened.

[The interview is interrupted with news that Nigerian writer Ken Saro-Wiwa has been executed. Rushdie is silent, near tears, for ten minutes. He then begins speaking again.]

Writers have been wiped out all over the place, and it is horrifying the way in which nothing much happens as a result. I will be interested to see what happens to Nigeria as a result of this. I suspect a three-letter word that begins with O and ends in L---with I in the middle---might prevent anybody from being too harsh. Yet here is a man who has been killed because he set himself up against the interests of oil. A very brave man, because he didn't write from exile. He wrote from inside the belly of the beast and it was dangerous. Then he gave up his writing to put himself at the head of the democracy movement. He knew the rest of the world was getting to be wishy-washy and nobody was willing to do anything. [He stops again, collects himself.] You know, I feel that so much attention has been paid to me while so many other writers have been in danger. I have spoken about other writers because it would be obscene to use this attention and not talk about those others. I wish people would listen more to this.

There were great writers in the Soviet gulag whom we fought for. We smuggled out their work and published it, and gave them voices and fought for them. Now another group of writers is fighting against equivalent tyranny and equivalent injustice, in the Muslim world or out. Because our interests do not dictate it, we ignore them, we let them die, we let them go to jail and rot. We must stop a situation in which writers are getting wiped out every five minutes, in which writers are being exiled, in which Saro-Wiwa can be murdered. China continues to persecute its writers. All over the world, writers are being thrown in jail. They mysteriously die in police custody and they are falsely accused of committing crimes. It is open season on writers and it must stop.

One journalist said, "Oh, don't worry about this Khomeini character. He condemns people to death every Friday. Forget it."