Kunzru: I wanted to give voice to Rushdie at litfest
British author of Indian-origin Hari Kunzru has defended his decision to read out an excerpt from Sir Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, which is banned in India, at the Jaipur Literature festival.
Describing The Satanic Verses as “just a book, not a bomb,” British-born Kunzru said his only intention was to protest against the Booker Prize-winner’s absence due to “manufactured” controversies.
Kunzru and US-based Indian writer Amitava Kumar both quoted from the Satanic Verses during a session at the festival about Kunzru’s latest novel, Gods Without Men. However, the ensuing controversy forced Kunzru to leave Jaipur early on Saturday morning, and he left India the same day.
“Our intention was not to offend anyone’s religious sensibilities, but to give a voice to a writer who had been silenced by a death threat,” Kunzru wrote in the Guardian.
“Reading from another one of his books would have been meaningless. The Satanic Verses was the cause of the trouble, so The Satanic Verses it would have to be. We did not choose passages that have been construed as blasphemous by Muslim opponents of the book — this would have been pointless, as these passages have overshadowed the rest of the content of the novel, which concerns the relationship between faith and doubt, and contains much that has nothing to do with religion whatsoever,” he explained.
“We wanted to demystify the book. It is, after all, just a book. Not a bomb. Not a knife or a gun. Just a book,” Kunzru added.
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