Salman Rushdie renews fight against book-banning -- 3 essential articles on right-wing challenges to what schoolkids can read

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

Howard Manly, The Conversation

(THE CONVERSATION) No one needs to tell Salman Rushdie about the cost of free speech.

In 1989, Rushdie’s novel “The Satanic Verses” triggered the ire of Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who called for the writer’s death.

Protests against Rushdie’s novel ignited violent attacks against bookstores across the world, and the book was later banned in such countries as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Sudan.

Even those safety precautions were not enough to prevent a nearly fatal attack on Rushdie in the summer of 2022 while he was on stage at a literary festival in western New York. Rushdie was stabbed repeatedly and eventually lost an eye.

In his first public appearance since the attack, on May 18, 2023, Rushdie, 75, accepted an award for his courage at the annual gala of PEN America, a nonprofit literary group that is in the middle of a...