Salman Rushdie lets herself fall into a sofa and sighs. “What a heat!” He wears a graying beard, light blue shirt, white pants. On the streets of New York, it’s almost 40 degrees hot. The interview takes place on the 21st floor of a skyscraper in Manhattan instead, near the Central Park.
Salman Rushdie lives around the corner, it is the Taxi arrived – without guards. Today this is normal for him. Earlier he had bodyguards that before an interview even registered journalists searched extensively. Meanwhile Rushdie
has, 68 years old, learned to live with the risk of 1989, the Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa -. A death sentence – against him imposed. He looked through Rushdie’s novel “The Satanic Verses” Islam and the Prophet Muhammad offended. Rushdie lived twelve years to personal protection and an assumed name in the underground UK -. Continuously in other places
late nineties Iran former President Khatami has indeed of the death sentence aloof, officially withdrawn but it was never. Again and again, there were messages of Islamist groups that have increased the bounty.
Rushdie has lived for 16 years, most of the time in New York, officially since 2002 without permanent personal protection. He has become an instance of standing firm, one of the most regardless of the threats of the past 26 years, the various forms of terror attacks criticized – and also our way to deal with it
That’s his role. But you can feel in an interview that he would like to leave, at least temporarily. Like when he every now and then wandering, usually in the pop culture – ponders and then with almost childlike enthusiasm as a fan about why the “Star Wars” Darth Vader -Kosmos is so much more interesting than Luke Skywalker
The World: It is said that you are addicted to the computer game “Angry Birds “. Already tried the new version
Salman Rushdie: No. I have completely lost my interest in this game
The World:. You have times raved about how much it can help you turn off your mind, time to take a break from the debates and all other
Rushdie:. I play those games always Only for a while, then they lose their charm for me. It has eventually bored me to throw with birds after pigs. I have now given myself a new game, the “Candy Crush Saga”
The World:. You’ll have candy in bringing a fantasy world in the right number, the right
Rushdie: Yes. “Candy Crush Saga” is my latest obsession. But even they will disappear quickly. How do you actually get it
The World: The ‘Angry Birds’ had clearly to the young adult novel “Luka and the Life Fire “inspired, in which the hero has to fight his way from level to level
Rushdie: True
.
The World: In your new novel “Two years, eight months and twenty days”, there are many time jumps and ludicrous exchange between the real world and Fantasy. I wondered: Were you driven some crazy computer game to – or have you taken drugs
Rushdie: I do not take Drugs. (laughs) I do not think that my drugs would help to think up such stories. Anyone who takes drugs, after lying around sluggishly. There is this legend that alcohol would have helped many writers to write great works. I do not believe it. I have lunch drink a half glass of wine, that’s enough, and the day is lost to me. Then I bring into being anything more useful. The book simply reflects the nonsense in my head resist
The World:. you describe the struggle between evil and good genies, the advance of a magical world to New York. It is a struggle between believers and unbelievers. A modern version of “Thousand and One Nights”, enriched with political and historical footnotes and cross-references to Harry Potter, Ionesco, Dalí
Rushdie:. interesting that you have Ionesco and Dalí picked – Surrealism is certainly the art form that has inspired me in my life the most. There I’ve always been more interested to penetrate through a fantastic than a naturalistic perspective to the truth. Recently, I had written my memoirs, a kind of nonfiction
The World:. where you describe your life in the shadow of fatwa of Iran’s revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini had in 1989 imposed on it because it “The Satanic Verses” an insult to Islam and the Prophet Muhammad saw in your novel.
Rushdie: It was a book about my life in the heart of darkness, to say it with Joseph Conrad, yes. I wanted to once again write to the other side of the spectrum, something that was imagined to a great extent. . If you want this: a kind of Anti-Memoirs
The World: However, is again interpreted the book politically – as parable to the threat of the Islamic state and the fear of terrorist and extremists. Does this perception
Rushdie: You see, I live in this world, just like everyone else. My books always negotiated by the world in which I live. Even fictional stories are not pure escapism, with no connection to the here and now for me. Then I would prefer to write any books, than something. But, yes, I wish I know that people would perceive my work not only through the political lens. After the fatwa and the attacks on my work, the threat that people see me in the political author. Not the writer. Anyway, I’ve let me drive from the entertainment principle in writing this book. I wanted above all, make it fun to read this book. Because these were responses that I got that time to listen to my children’s books “Haroun and the Sea of Stories” and “Luka” from readers. That made me very happy. I had written two books for my sons: Fairytale stories for children. This time I wanted to write a fairy tale for adults, and bring it to another level – in the hope that it just from reading with pleasure, you understand
? The World: Therefore, the jinns have so endless sex, and you are allowed to make fun of the beards of fundamentalists
Rushdie: You obviously seem to cheer. My shameless ferocious literary agent, Andrew Wylie, sitting in his office two of us here now, told me that he would have had to laugh out loud in the subway. I thought to myself: If I bring Andrew Wylie in the subway laugh, it’s somehow okay
The World:. They also make fun of the digital acceleration, the daily changing our world at a rapid pace. As a snake Zauberwesen attacked a skyscraper, whip out the New Yorker in your book the smartphones. Are we now so that we document everything only once – before we react as human beings it
Rushdie: I saw recently a very funny cartoon in the “New Yorker”. He showed the sinking “Titanic”. The water is full of people who have already jumped from the ship – and they all stretch the arms over the water because they film the downfall with their smartphones. These things (he keeps his smartphone high) have changed everything. They have enabled us quasi into the world of the miraculous, supernatural. They have everything speeds up, make many things possible that seemed impossible a few years ago. And many people find disturbing because it around them no longer understand this world that constantly changes with new apps new Something tools in irrem pace.
The World: you use Twitter, make it so occasionally in the headlines – such as with your tweet immediately after the death of your friend Günter Grass:” Drum for him Little Oscar “. Are you also a digital genie
Rushdie: After Günters death I wanted to say something that was not only banal and obvious , That just came out of me. For me, the social networks are very peripherally. I have very mixed feelings with regard to Twitter. A part of me sympathizes with colleagues like Jonathan Franzen, who says: We should not leave us thus, we do not need all this noise in our heads. There are times when even I think: I do not need this noise in my head also. There are phases, days, sometimes weeks, in which I do not do anything in the social networks. Then again, it’s interesting because I’m there sometimes involved in very interesting conversations with my readers. That’s kind of fun. And sometimes, I must confess it gives me also great pleasure if I crush an idiotic Troll
The World:. The Trolls make you not afraid
Rushdie: No. Basically, I do not consider the social networks for essential trustworthy. All this takes place at the edges of my life. I am going there to play a bit. What I appreciate at Twitter, is the rapidity with which I am informed there. Breaking News I get there faster than anywhere else
The World:. This rapidity including adherence to the terrorists of the “Islamic State of “advantage – with the effect that they have spread rapidly worldwide. In this way you can read your tales of the evil jinns also, or
Rushdie: Watch: If I a book about the “Islamic State” would have wanted to write, I would have done that. Of apart: When I started three years ago to conceive this book, you knew nothing of the “Islamic State”. ISIS was for most at that time the name of an Egyptian goddess. Or of a rowing boat at Oxford University
The World:. Named after the tributary of the Thames, which flows through Oxford.
Rushdie: Yes. But it’s true, of course, the “Islamic State” and the terror has spread incredibly fast, and seem to have a great attraction for young people in the Western world to exercise. Given this very disturbing state in which the world is currently, it would have been very easy to write a book in which everything is just terrible, then gets worse and very bad ending. But that would not be tempted myself as a writer. I wanted to write a story that does not show the inevitable victory of evil. Therefore me the tales of “The Arabian Nights” have so inspired. The idea that Scheherazade can civilize a barbaric rulers alone through the telling, I think – especially in times like these – very sexy. She manages not only that the despot in love with her, she also changed its nature. A story that turns a monster into a human being.
The World: Do you think that stories can change the world for the better – and that, after you have placed in danger of death with your books?
Rushdie: I wanted this time a story below the newsflow
en. I wanted to show that all of these current fighting between belief and unbelief, the rational and the irrational are not just phenomena of the present. But that it is eternal conflicts date back centuries. Above all, I wanted to show that we all have the facilities to such hatred in us. The dark genies who walk from the fantasy world into reality and penetrate into human body can – they are the system of evil, to hatred, which can break out in all of us
The World: You said you wanted to write a sort of anti-memoirs – here there are several figures that refer to you: Is about Ibn Rushd, an Arab philosopher from the 12 . century, your alter ego
Rushdie: I do not feel that I’m writing about myself. However, this may be a necessary illusion: To be able to ever write fiction, I must suppress the knowledge that much of what I write comes from myself. So I had the feeling that I wrote about Ibn Rushd, not about myself. But yes, we share a lot. He was sent for his critical theses against Islam into exile, his books were burned
The World:. In addition to the philosophers Averroes there is another fictional character that refers to you – whose fictional descendant, Mr. Geronimo. Born in Mumbai, he lives and works in New York as a gardener, but there is uprooted. When the world is falling apart, he begins at once to hover above the ground
Rushdie:. Geronimo’s uprooted like me, that’s true. Mumbai we have in common. But he comes from a different community than I am, an Indian Christian. What I share with him the experience of having lost my home. Because Mumbai has changed so much that my city, as I knew it, no longer exists. I have often been as an adult again in Mumbai, know there is still a lot of people who place close to my heart. But my connection to this place has become weaker. This is painful, because I was always very important to Mumbai and familiar. The ground under my feet lose – this is my metaphor for a world out of joint. I thought it was funny, this time to push it to the extreme: First there are only a few centimeters that separate him from the ground, then there are more and more
The World: you write in many places of the book also scared. Fear of attacks by the fundamentalist genies and about what makes them afraid with already frightened people. Many cower away, others are even radically. Are you made in all the years in which they lived with the threat to a fear experts
Rushdie: I have certainly learned in the twelve years in which I had to live in hiding because of the fatwa threat that fear also brings good people to do bad things. And because fear is irrational, you can not argue with her. If someone is afraid, you can tell him that in your view there is no reason to. You might tell him: Look, there are six reasons why you do not so much fear would have. Your counterpart will listen to it. And at the end it says: Yes, but I’m still scared
The World:. You have often stressed, you itself felt today certainly broadly. Today the fear increased around you
Rushdie: You see, I have drawn from my life in the underground my conclusions , I know what I must respect. I have often seen in my life people who are derailed by her fear. And I have the impression that we are now living in the darkest time that I’ve ever known. I refer not on me personally. I’m doing better today than in the twelve years in which I had to constantly go into hiding somewhere in my life. But the world has become darker around me
The World:. According to the fatwa in 1989 they experienced in large parts of the international Community solidarity – and also some cowardice. When, after the attacks on the French satirical newspaper “Charlie Hebdo” Two of the survivors from the Writers’ Union PEN should be recognized for their journalistic courage protested a number of well-known writers on the other hand.
Rushdie: This is expressed very posh
The World: Michael Ondaatje , Peter Carey or Joyce Carol Oates did not want to applaud in this way the survivors. They feared to hurt this way the feelings of Muslims, some threw “Charlie Hebdo” right to spread Islamophobia. They called some of her adversaries then “sympathizers” of extremists
Rushdie:. Yes. And I stand by it
The World:. The author Francine Prose accused them of then, is a hate speech to use. Do you take back anything
Rushdie: No. I have used in the context the term sympathizers deliberately because these colleagues of mine allow debates as they wish, the “Charlie Hebdo” -killer. Of all the colleagues who have spoken to Francine Prose behaved just hateful, disgusting. They even went so far that she was looking out the worst criticism to my memoirs and posted on Facebook. With the note: everyone should read times to see how Salman Rushdie really is
The World:. The met you
Rushdie: When I was president of the American branch of the PEN Club, was Francine Prose Vice-President , For years I have worked with her. From this dispute a lot of trash, much ugliness is left. Sorry. No matter. The award ceremony in New York was still a success, “Charlie Hebdo” was honored cope, the reaction of the media was almost entirely supportive. But many of my friends or acquaintances to other writers have been damaged. I see it like this: All those writers who had protested against the assessment of “Charlie Hebdo” would no longer defend myself when the death threats were uttered against me now and not 26 years ago. You know, Francine Prose I do not care. Many of the other writers who are held against it, I do not care. I like them. Michael Ondaatje, Peter Carey are old friends of mine. Very old friends
The World:. You are the still
Rushdie: I have not seen in recent times. Nobody speaks more to the other. I was very surprised to see them in this dispute on the other side of the dispute. And yes, that has some damage done
The World:. You have previously lamented the hypocrisy in the debate, in which respect in dealing with Islam was demanded. They said, in fact it is about the fear of saying something critical. This fear has once again tightened after the attack on “Charlie Hebdo”
Rushdie: Yes. I’m still inclined to see the emergence of the Arab Spring in a way, as hopeful moment. Only this movement was crushed. And today we are experiencing the counterforce: the IS, which recruited followers worldwide. There is a privatization of terror, a kind of threat, which is a new normality. It no longer has to come from an organization like al-Qaeda. It is sufficient if a guy decides to try to arrange with a Kalashnikov, a massacre in the train
The World:. Geronimo , the gardener, is in your novel a reluctant hero in the fight against extremist jinns. He must first be persuaded to be brave. Do we need today such Mr Geronimo
Rushdie: Courage, like fear, something unexpected. People discover courage and heroism in in moments in which they themselves would have never expected. . As the three young men who recently overpowered the assassin on the train from Amsterdam to Paris
The World: The Schaffner had locked himself out of fear in safety compartments. Two US soldiers in civilian and a US student helped to prevent the assassin of his madness. How would you have reacted
Rushdie: None of us can so answer a question. In life there are always events in which you do not know how you’re going to behave yourself. You know it only when you need to find it. If you’re lucky, you’ll never be in such a situation. Some of us would certainly surprised by themselves how they would be cowardly. Others would be surprised by her courage. I do not know what I would do if I suddenly a violent person opposite would. I’m not good at it, very hard to fight. The image that I have of myself, is not necessarily that of a courageous people.
The World: However, after all these years that you live in times of concrete, sometimes diffuse threat have you still not afraid to say what you think. Is this not a form of courage
Rushdie: I take my job as a writer in the world very seriously. I consider it a tremendous privilege that I have found about a position where I have a voice. Want to listen to a voice of the people. If you have such a position, one of the ten intellectual writers in the world, means that narrative fucking truth! And: Say what you think! Otherwise you dishonor your profession. But do not ask me how it goes – I’m not a good prophet
The World: An event you have in. predicted your book fairly accurate: In your fictional New York there is a tycoon, in the slips an evil genie. Henceforth he is so megalomanisch that he brings the political system to collapse. You read that – and sees Donald Trump right
Rushdie:. I’m really proud that I the phenomenon Donald Trump have anticipated in the book. (laughs) Trump is a comic figure. What is he doing here is ridiculous to a large extent. What he triggers around him through his vile defamation of Mexican immigrants, however, is not funny. Because it motivates people to do things that are not funny. Honestly, I love Donald Trump – somehow. I want more Trump! The more Trump the agenda of the Republican Party determined, the greater the chance that they will never, ever get a president in the White House.
The World: Obama, you supported, comes in your book not so good away
Rushdie:. He’s just a kind of Obama
The World:. I ask you: A president with protruding ears, the not so good dancing as his wife
Rushdie:.. Okay, okay, it’s a joke about Obama
The World: you write, this president is unable to cope with the oddities of his time, like others before him. Only: From him you would have expected more. Sounds as if you were very disappointed by it
Rushdie: No, not at all. Currently, I’m pretty impressed with him. He has the economy out of a colossal trough into which the country had been forced by the previous Administration. Regarding social issues, he has recently said clearly his mind and advanced things. In his first term he was not so sure what to make of the same-sex marriage. Now it is he who took up the cause, advocates of gay marriage. Hatred, violence against blacks has increased – but that’s not his fault. The fact that it has managed for the first time a black man to the White House, has the extreme right so much displaced like nothing else in this world into a rage. I believe that the US is facing a heavy racial problem. There was always racial issues in America, but now they are in a way re-kindled, as we have long not seen. Obama still has a little time. It will be interesting to see what he will do in this regard. But I’m not disappointed, as I was after the end of the first term of office
The World:. How do you assess the imposed by Obama Deal to monitor Iran’s nuclear program? There was massive criticism
Rushdie:. I do not share. I am certainly not the person from whom one would expect now praise for Iran. (laughs) I have strong reasons to be very skeptical. But I am not a warmonger nor a hawk. If you look at the wars that America has imposed on the world, after the 9/11 attacks, was recently the 14th anniversary, all these wars have made the world any safer to say the least. They have transformed the world in a much more dangerous place. When it comes to Iran, there is now the opportunity to try it with this peaceful option. I am inclined to believe that this is first time not such a bad idea. However, I’m worried about whether Iran will deliver on its promised promises and allow inspection of its nuclear facilities. If Iran does not do that, immediate countermeasures have been announced in the contract. So if I would be allowed to vote in Congress, I would have been for this deal. Now we talked a long time. Do you have more questions
The World: Yes, I watch all the time on the road sign with the “Philip Roth Place “above your head that has hung your agent. Roth has suddenly said a few years ago: I do not write more novels.
No comments:
Post a Comment