![]() I am sure most of the fanatics who wished him dead have not actually read him. I asked myself: what if they catch me with his books? Will I be sentenced to life imprisonment? Anything can happen here it is Pakistan, I murmured to myself.īut I didn’t have The Satanic Verses with me, and did not actually like the book. On my way back to Pakistan, trying to wrap his books in my luggage so no one could discover them, I felt as if I was smuggling explosives. ![]() Then, during a foreign trip, I was finally able to buy hard copies. I could not afford the cost, so I ended up reading Rushdie online. The cost of The Satanic Verses would be triple, given the risk he was taking by selling it in effect, the vendor said, a death sentence if caught. The bookseller responded that he would get me all the author’s books but each would cost at least 20,000 rupees (£75). In a hair-raising exchange that felt as though I were looking to buy illegal drugs, I went and whispered into the bookseller’s ear that I needed the books of Rushdie. ![]() To access his books, someone recommended visiting a specific bookstore in Pakistan. ![]() ![]() As I was to discover, just getting hold of a copy of one of his works, let alone reading the texts, had become an illicit pleasure for many young people of my generation. That his books were banned in my country and the mere mention of his name was thought to be a sin only increased my curiosity. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |