London: Novelist Salman Rushdie says that he doesn’t regret writing The Satanic Verses, the book that almost cost him his life.
His comment came 20 years after the publication of the book, while he was filming an interview with television presenter Clive James.
He also slammed his own publisher Random House who had refused to publish the book in the US in August, calling it “censorship by fear”.
According to Times Online, Rushdie describes himself in the interview as an atheist who finds dead religions “much more attractive”, but has nothing against true believers until their faith spills over into the public sphere and becomes “my business”.
“The question I’m always asking myself is: are we masters or victims? Do we make history or does history make us? Do we shape the world or are we just shaped by it? The question of do we have agency in our lives or whether we are just passive victims of events is, I think, a great question and one that I have always tried to ask. In that sense I wouldn’t not have wanted to be the writer that asked it,” he said.
The chat with Rushdie was part of a series of interviews with leading cultural figures filmed exclusively for The Times.
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