Rushdie 'may write book on fatwa'.

Kanye Pruitt

29 July 2008

Salman Rushdie talks about how 'soft power ' including the web can defeat tyranny. Sir Salman Rushdie claims he may write a book about the fatwa imposed on him twenty years back after the publication of his novel The Devilish Verses.

The writer, who went into hiding for 9 years, told BBC's Newsnight he had found the experience "very difficult". "I guesstimate there is a story there" he announced. "Various folk [are] inspiring me to inform it, and perhaps I will." Iran's late Ayatollah Khomeini imposed the fatwa over The Hellish Verses ' reference to the soothsayer Mohammad. The Booker Prize-winner recounted his solitude was "full of limitations and issues, not only for me apart from my folks and publishers. So it does feel a bit like an earlier chapter." "At the time it was something I was just attempting to get thru and get out of" he said. 'Change the world ' The writer announced he didn't believe the situation would occur again.

He referenced the example of a German play based primarily on his novel that has popped up inside the year and failed to garner protests. He also spoke of the significance of the net as a way of narrowing the opening between cultures. He claimed : "The more aspects of Western culture folk become conscious of, in whatever tyrannical country - if it's China or Iran - folks need it.

"It could be that what we consider as insignificant and prosaic stuff like YouTube and MySpace, this will change the globe. "The net is showing folks what life can be like. And when folk who live in repressive states see that, it makes them desire it." The writer, who was knighted in June last year, turned into a literary star overnite at 34 with Midnight's Youngsters . Earlier in the month, the novel, which deals with the private and political result of India's autonomy, won the Best of the Booker prize. It book beat 5 other previous Booker winners shortlisted from the prize's 40-year history in a public vote.