a year and a half. This novel, too, had a wonderful reception everywhere, or almost everywhere. In Pakistan itself it was unsurprisingly banned by Pakistan’s dictator, Zia ul-Haq, the point of origin for the character of “Raza Hyder” in the novel. However, many copies of the book found their way into Pakistan, including, he was told by Pakistani friends, quite a few that were brought in through the diplomatic pouches of various embassies, whose staffs read the book avidly and then passed it on.
Some years later he learned that
Shame
had even been awarded a prize in Iran. It had been published in Farsi without his knowledge, in a state-sanctioned pirate edition, and then had been named the best novel translated into Farsi that year. He never received the award, nor was he sent any formal notification of it; but it meant—according to stories emerging from Iran—that when
The Satanic Verses
was published five years later, the few Iranian booksellers who sold English-language books assumed that it would be unproblematic to sell this new title, its author having already gained the mullocracy’s approval with his previous work; and so copies were imported and put on sale at the time of the book’s first publication in September 1988, and these copies remained on sale for six months, without arousing any opposition, until the
fatwa
of February 1989. He was never able to find out if this story was true, but he hoped it was, because it demonstrated what he believed: that the furor over his book was created from the top down, not from the bottom up.
But in the mideighties the
fatwa
was an unimaginable cloud hidden below the far horizon. Meanwhile, the success of his books had a beneficial effect on his character. He felt something relax deep within him, and became happier, sweeter natured, easier to be around. Strangely, however, older novelists gave him warnings in those balmy times ofworse days to follow. He was taken to lunch by Angus Wilson at the Athenaeum Club not long after Wilson’s seventieth birthday; and, listening to the author of
Anglo-Saxon Attitudes
and
The Old Men at the Zoo
speak wistfully of the days “when I used to be a fashionable writer” he understood that he was being told, gently, that the wind always changes; yesterday’s hot young kid is tomorrow’s melancholy, ignored senior citizen.
When he went to America for the publication of
Midnight’s Children
he had his picture taken by the photographer Jill Krementz and met her husband, Kurt Vonnegut; and they invited him out to their house in Sagaponack, Long Island, for the weekend. “Are you serious about this writing business?” Vonnegut unexpectedly asked him as they sat drinking beers in the sunshine, and when he replied that he was, the author of
Slaughterhouse-Five
told him, “Then you should know that the day is going to come when you won’t have a book to write, and you’re still going to have to write a book.”
On his way to Sagaponack he had read a bundle of reviews sent over by his American publishers, Knopf. There was an astonishingly generous notice by Anita Desai in
The Washington Post
. If she thought well of the book then he could be happy; perhaps he really had done something worthwhile. And there was a positive review in the
Chicago Tribune
, written by Nelson Algren.
The Man with the Golden Arm, A Walk on the Wild Side … that
Nelson Algren? The lover of Simone de Beauvoir, the friend of Hemingway? It was as if literature’s golden past had reached out to anoint him.
Nelson Algren
, he thought in wonderment.
I thought he was dead
. He arrived in Sagaponack earlier than expected. The Vonneguts were on their way out of the house to go to the housewarming party of their friend and neighbor … Nelson Algren. It was an amazing coincidence. “Well,” said Kurt, “if he reviewed your book I’m sure he’d like to meet you. I’ll go call him and tell him you’re coming over with us.” He went indoors. A few
Some years later he learned that
Shame
had even been awarded a prize in Iran. It had been published in Farsi without his knowledge, in a state-sanctioned pirate edition, and then had been named the best novel translated into Farsi that year. He never received the award, nor was he sent any formal notification of it; but it meant—according to stories emerging from Iran—that when
The Satanic Verses
was published five years later, the few Iranian booksellers who sold English-language books assumed that it would be unproblematic to sell this new title, its author having already gained the mullocracy’s approval with his previous work; and so copies were imported and put on sale at the time of the book’s first publication in September 1988, and these copies remained on sale for six months, without arousing any opposition, until the
fatwa
of February 1989. He was never able to find out if this story was true, but he hoped it was, because it demonstrated what he believed: that the furor over his book was created from the top down, not from the bottom up.
But in the mideighties the
fatwa
was an unimaginable cloud hidden below the far horizon. Meanwhile, the success of his books had a beneficial effect on his character. He felt something relax deep within him, and became happier, sweeter natured, easier to be around. Strangely, however, older novelists gave him warnings in those balmy times ofworse days to follow. He was taken to lunch by Angus Wilson at the Athenaeum Club not long after Wilson’s seventieth birthday; and, listening to the author of
Anglo-Saxon Attitudes
and
The Old Men at the Zoo
speak wistfully of the days “when I used to be a fashionable writer” he understood that he was being told, gently, that the wind always changes; yesterday’s hot young kid is tomorrow’s melancholy, ignored senior citizen.
When he went to America for the publication of
Midnight’s Children
he had his picture taken by the photographer Jill Krementz and met her husband, Kurt Vonnegut; and they invited him out to their house in Sagaponack, Long Island, for the weekend. “Are you serious about this writing business?” Vonnegut unexpectedly asked him as they sat drinking beers in the sunshine, and when he replied that he was, the author of
Slaughterhouse-Five
told him, “Then you should know that the day is going to come when you won’t have a book to write, and you’re still going to have to write a book.”
On his way to Sagaponack he had read a bundle of reviews sent over by his American publishers, Knopf. There was an astonishingly generous notice by Anita Desai in
The Washington Post
. If she thought well of the book then he could be happy; perhaps he really had done something worthwhile. And there was a positive review in the
Chicago Tribune
, written by Nelson Algren.
The Man with the Golden Arm, A Walk on the Wild Side … that
Nelson Algren? The lover of Simone de Beauvoir, the friend of Hemingway? It was as if literature’s golden past had reached out to anoint him.
Nelson Algren
, he thought in wonderment.
I thought he was dead
. He arrived in Sagaponack earlier than expected. The Vonneguts were on their way out of the house to go to the housewarming party of their friend and neighbor … Nelson Algren. It was an amazing coincidence. “Well,” said Kurt, “if he reviewed your book I’m sure he’d like to meet you. I’ll go call him and tell him you’re coming over with us.” He went indoors. A few
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