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“... people – or country, religion, race, and even continent (as in the New York Times’s praise for Salman Rushdie: ‘A continent finding its voice’). Relations between the anointed ‘representative’ writer and those who are denied this privilege by white gatekeepers are notoriously prickly. Coates, a self-made writer, is particularly vulnerable to ...”

“... they are ‘extremely emotional’.) Before that could happen, however, the Iranian fatwa against Salman Rushdie intervened. It was now out of the question to apply the new liberal guideline to Iran. On the contrary, the Government suddenly became as keen to tighten the controls on Iran as they still were to loosen them on Iraq. The 21 December solution ...”

“... her battle for principles that others only espoused. When the fatwa was issued in 1989 against Salman Rushdie after the publication of The Satanic Verses, some of the major literary spokesmen against the censorship and intimidation of artists went meek, mumbling and hiding behind trees. ‘Even Mailer – normally so combative – hesitated; but he ...”

“... 1980s, after ringing him up to ask for feedback on the rushes of Handsworth Songs. In 1987, when Salman Rushdie described the film in the Guardian as ‘no good’, Hall rushed to its defence. ‘With deep gratitude and respect,’ the dedication says at the end of The Stuart Hall Project.You may well imagine me, putting together the bit about Policing ...”

“... Like the bosses he describes, he must move under armed guard. Comparisons have been made with Salman Rushdie’s experience – not least by Rushdie himself – but the situation is only partly analogous. Rushdie was surprised and shocked by the response of extremists to a few ...”

“... insomniac, hypochondriac. ‘If Said had a cough he feared the onset of bronchitis,’ Salman Rushdie wrote after his death, ‘and if he felt a twinge he was certain his appendix was about to collapse.’Many illustrious friends and acquaintances – Philip Roth, Nadine Gordimer, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis – make cameos in Brennan’s ...”

“... was swamped by the extra-literary controversies surrounding The Satanic Verses. One strand in Salman Rushdie’s novel, necessarily under-discussed, was Brick Lane-based, a Bollywood dérive through the territory where I came across Moorcock’s King of the City poster. Both authors have moved on. Rushdie, seduced ...”

“... of Gordon’s book can’t help but get a bit luvvie-ish: Carmen and Deborah and Liz and Lorna and Salman (though it’s nice that Gordon puts in the spiteful way Carter referred to Ian McEwan behind his back as ‘poor Ian’, as in, ‘poor Ian has been dreadfully overrated’ – she was always chippy about what she saw, with perfect accuracy, as her own ...”

“... he count?’ Though the private secretary had never heard of him he thought he sounded right. ‘Salman Rushdie?’ ‘Probably not, maam.’ ‘I don’t see,’ said the Queen, ‘why there is any need for a press release at all. Why should the public care what I am reading? The Queen reads. That is all they need to know. “So what?” I imagine the ...”