It is timely that in the week
which saw the writer Salman Rushdie publish his long awaited memoirs, that I
should come across the following press cutting as part of box-listing a
collection. The cutting details a visit made by Rushdie to Dublin in 1993. This
visit took place, of course, during the very height of the controversy and
consequent 'Fatwa' out on the life of Rushdie owing to the publication of his
novel the Satanic Versus, on January 15th 1993, with the press
cuttings, taken from the Irish Press, dated the following day.
The Article reads: "There
was a marked security presence at Trinity College last night where the writer
defied death threats to appear at a conference on censorship and
democracy." Rushdie met in private with President Mary McAleese and other
leading Government and political figures earlier in the day though then
Taoiseach Albert Reynolds "declined to meet the writer" and these
meetings had been subject to a "news blackout".
Rushdie's recently published memoir
is entitled Joseph Anton - both names
coming from the forenames of Conrad and Chekhov and was also the cover-name
that Rushdie operated under when under fear of threat to his life.
The eagle-eyed among you may spot
a familiar face at the talk by Rushdie on the second page of coverage, none
other than Bono!
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