Rushdie mulls writing, strange times

Iconic writer presents history of writing in a changing world

"Here I am risking my life, maybe, but not for the first time," said Sir Salman Rushdie, apparently referring to his willingness to stand out in public, at his lecture presented by the Sun Valley Center for the Arts at the Sun Valley Pavilion on Friday, Sept. 10.

More than 900 people filed into the amphitheater to hear the iconic writer and speaker, whose life was threatened by the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran for his controversial book The Satanic Verses.

Rushdie said writers risk their lives to tell stories, and we live in strange times for writers. About Khomeini, he said, "one of us is dead," receiving laughter and applause from the audience. Rushdie spent nearly a decade "underground" and seldom appeared in public because of Khomeini's death threat.

Rushdie opined on what he said were surreal events taking place in the world today. These events included the controversy of a mosque at the former site of the World Trade Center towers in New York City and a potential burning of holy Qurans by a pastor in Florida to occur the following day in response to the tragic 9/11 events.