Controversial book by author Salman Rushdie back to bookstores in India

By Anadolu Staff

Salman Rushdie’s controversial book The Satanic Verses is available again in Indian bookstores after a court lifted a three-decade ban.

The availability of the book in bookstores followed last month’s decision by a court in India over a challenge to the government’s 1988 decision to ban imports of the novel by Rushdie, who was born in Mumbai.

The court closed the plea after authorities were unable to produce or file the ban notification before the court.

"The Satanic Verses is now in stock,” Bahrisons Booksellers, a publisher based in the capital New Delhi, said on X.

The book, published in 1988, triggered controversy after its publication, as some Muslims called passages in the book blasphemous. It also triggered protests throughout the Muslim world, including in India.

The late Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issuing a fatwah calling for Rushdie's death over the novel.

Rushdie, 77, has lived in the US since 2000, and has faced death threats over the book.

In 2022, when he about to give a lecture in the state of New York, he was stabbed and suffered multiple injuries. He was hospitalized and lost sight in one eye and the use of one hand.

He is the author of several novels including Midnight's Children, which won the Booker Prize in 1981.