(Londres) L’écrivain Salman Rushdie a prononcé un discours public, neuf mois après avoir été poignardé et gravement blessé sur scène, prévenant que la liberté d’expression en Occident est menacée plus que jamais.
Rushdie a livré un message vidéo aux British Book Awards, où il a reçu le Prix de la liberté de publier, lundi soir. Les organisateurs ont déclaré que cet honneur « reconnaît la détermination des auteurs, des éditeurs et des libraires qui prennent position contre l’intolérance, malgré les menaces constantes auxquelles ils sont confrontés ».
Dans son discours, l’écrivain a affirmé que nous vivons à une époque, « où la liberté d’expression, la liberté de publier n’ont pas été autant menacées de [son] living in Western countries.
“Now I’m sitting here in the United States watching the extraordinary attack on libraries and children’s books in schools,” he said.
“It’s quite remarkably alarming, and we have to be very aware of it and fight very hard against it. »
Rushdie, 75, was blinded in one eye and suffered nerve damage to his hand when he was attacked at a literary festival in New York state in August. Her alleged attacker, Hadi Matar, pleaded not guilty to the charges of assault and attempted murder.
The author spent years in hiding with police protection, after Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or edict, in 1989 calling for his death for the novel’s alleged blasphemy satanic verses.
In his speech, Rushdie also criticized publishers who alter decades-old books due to modern sensibilities. The books of children’s writer Roald Dahl and James Bond author Ian Fleming have notably been rewritten.
He said publishers should allow books “to come to us from their time and be of their time. »
“And if it’s hard to take, don’t read it, read another book. »