(Berlin) Author Salman Rushdie spoke out in favor of an unconditional defense of freedom of expression as he received a prestigious German prize on Sunday which recognizes his literary work and his determination in the face of constant danger.
The British-American author decried the current era as one where freedom of expression is under attack from all sides, including by authoritarian and populist voices, according to German news agency dpa.
He made his remarks during a ceremony at St. Paul’s Church in Frankfurt, where he was honored with the German Booksellers’ Peace Prize for continuing to write despite decades of threats and violence.
In August 2022, Salman Rushdie was stabbed multiple times on stage at a literary festival in New York state.
He is preparing a memoir on the attack which left him blind in his right eye and with after-effects on his left hand. The book to be published on April 16 is his way of “responding to violence with art.”
The German prize, with a purse of 25,000 euros (about C$36,000), has been awarded since 1950. The German jury said earlier this year that it would honor Rushdie “for his determination, his positive attitude to ‘regard for life and for the fact that he enriches the world with his pleasure in storytelling”.
Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had condemned and called passages referring to the Prophet Muhammad in Rushdie’s 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses, blasphemous, forcing the author into hiding.
