The decades-long feud between British spy writer John le Carré and Indian-born author Salman Rushdie has finally ended, just a year after Nobel laureate Sir Vidia Naipaul ended a bitter feud with Paul Theroux.
The Rushdie-Le Carré feud had its roots in the 1989 fatwa by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini against Rushdie, 65, for writing The Satanic Verses, and erupted in public in a series of letters in London’s Guardian 15 years ago.
The vitriolic exchange of insults had Rushdie describing Le Carré as “an illiterate pompous ass” and a “dunce”, and Le Carré branding Rushdie as “self-canonising” and “arrogant”. The feud worsened after Rushdie’s friend Christopher Hitchens described Le Carré as “a man who, having relieved himself in his own hat, makes haste to clamp the brimming chapeau on his head”.
Le Carré in 1989, at the time of the fatwa, had urged Rushdie to stop distribution of Satanic Verses’ paperback version due to the threat of harm faced by those selling it.
Le Carré, 81, whose real name is David Cornwell, told London’s Times he regretted the dispute after Rushdie expressed regret for the row in October while promoting his book, Joseph Anton. Le Carré responded by accepting the Rushdie overture. “I admire Salman for his work and his courage,” he said.