The Satanic Verses – Twenty Years On
On 14 February 1989, Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini sent a startling valentine to the prize-winning novelist Salman Rushdie, in the form of a fatwa which condemned the author and his novel, The Satanic Verses: a moment when global forces set religion and imaginative expression against one another. Twenty years on, English PEN and the National bring together actors and writers to read from the novel and discuss the implications of the fatwa against the writer.
Readers include Alex Jennings and Toby Jones.
Guests: Hanif Kureishi, Nadeem Aslam and Geoffrey Robertson QC.
Chaired by Lisa Appignanesi.
Read an article in The Observer about the anniversary of the fatwa.
(Running time: 1 hour)
The Satanic Verses – Twenty Years On finished on: 14 February 2009
