1. “A Marriage of Heaven and Hell”:

2. Why study Rushdie? Author of Midnight’s Children (1981), the “Booker of Bookers” an international emblem of freedom of speech, victim of a fatwa, 9 years in hiding Advocate for postcolonial hybrid identity, “Mongrels all!”

3. A Postcolonial Biography  Born on June 19, 1947 in Bombay (Mumbai), India, to a secular, Muslim family  1961, attends prestigious Rugby School in England.  1964, joins his parents in Karachi, Pakistan  1965, attends Kings College, Cambridge, in England, while Pakistan goes to war with India  1968 returns briefly to Pakistan  1971, Immigrates to England

4. Midnight’s Children (1981) PraisedBanned in India  Won, among other awards, the “Booker Prize”  Later won the 40 th anniversary, Booker of Bookers award  Translated into 12 languages

5. Shame (1983) “anti-sequel” PraisedBanned in Pakistan  Winner of the French Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger (Best Foreign Book Prize) Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger  Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, 1983

6. The Satanic Verses (1988) Praised  Whitbread Award for best novel 1988

7. On Valentine’s Day, 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini declares a fatwa: “I inform all zealous Muslims of the world that the author of the book entitled The Satanic Verses which was compiled, printed and published in opposition to Islam, the Prophet, and the Qur’an— and all those involved in its publication who were aware of its content, are sentenced to death. I call on all zealous Muslims to execute them quickly, wherever they may be found, so that no one else will dare to insult the Muslim sanctities. God Willing, whoever is killed on this path is a martyr.” (Quoted in Hamilton 113.)

8. A Campaign of Intimidation  Rushdie goes into hiding for 9 years  Viking Penguin receives thousands of threatening letters  Bookstores are bombed

9. A Real Death Sentence *5 killed in riots in Bombay *2 Muslim leaders in Brussels killed *Japanese translator, Hitoshi Igarashi, murdered *Italian translator knifed *Norwegian publisher survives shooting

10. But he kept writing… “If I can’t write, then, in a way, the attack has been successful” – Salman Rushdie Haroun and the Sea of Stories © 1990 East, West © 1994

11. Rushdie’s Heretical Fiction:

12. “The Prophet’s Hair”: proof that God walks among us?

13. The Theft of the Prophet’s Hair: History in a Storyteller’s Hands On December 27, 1963, the Mu-i- Mubarak disappeared… A “spontaneous show of collective grief”: Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus alike, took part in peaceful demonstrations…

14. The story inside the story? On January 4 th, 1964, the Prophet’s Hair was miraculously “recovered” by the officials of India’s Central Bureau of Intelligence. “There were no explanations…” (Ghosh 225-226)

15. What happened to Hashim? “under the influence of the misappropriated relic” BeforeAfter  “not a godly man” (41)  Charged 70% interest  Cordial household  Raised his children to have a “healthy independence of spirit” (42)  “An end to hypocrisy!” (45)  Wife to receive only 1/8 th his estate  Daughter sent into purdah  Family prays 5 times daily  All books burned, except the Qur’an  Attempts to cut off the hand of the “thief” (46-47)

16. Figuratively Speaking What might Rushdie be saying about the Indian Subcontinent: his birthplace India, his parent’s home in Pakistan, the contested territory of Kashmir?  “…I am convinced that there will be no peace in our house until this hair is out of it” (49)  “the hair was persecuting them, and had come back to finish the job.” (50)

17. Rushdie’s real target:

18. Who Owns the REAL Islam? Sunni? Sh’ia? Sufi? Wahhabi? Ahmadiyya? (with a later day saint, or messiah: Ahmad, (1839-1908)

19. What if we bracket politics?

20. Reading the novel on its own terms? implications of its non-linear, multi- vocal form? Reviewing its reception BEFORE the fatwa studying its source materials: William Blake’s “Marriage of Heaven and Hell” (1790) *

21. Not an Either/Or Choice My hope is that if we momentarily take the voice of religion out of the conversation, we allow new ways for religion and questions of belief to enter back in…  Parody --- Prophesy  Skepticism – Spiritualism

22. “mélange, hotchpotch, a bit of this and a bit of that… The Satanic Verses “celebrates…the transformation that comes of new and unexpected combinations of human beings, cultures, ideas, politics, movies, songs…[this novel] is for change-by fusion, change-by-conjoining” (394).

23. A 20 th Century Fall of Man Terrorist explosion as plot device Transnational airspace a trope for a global world? Magical realism: Gibreel and Saladin survive Does beginning with a fall make this a theological text?

24. Intertextuality as Time-Travel How books talk to books across time – writer to reader to writer

25. Working against Modern Bias  In the special case of Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, I contend that discredited theories about Romantic authorship as a form of prophetic revelation are meant to inspire the secular, or skeptical, reader to enter into a spiritual space in which the phenomenon of prophecy, or various forms of “hearing voices,” do not remain safely ensconced in the obsolete past – a place modern notions of progress urge us to ignore.

26. True v. False Prophets? Isaiah (7 th century BC)Swedenborg (18 th c)

27. and the two contraries Married” -- Blake “Good and Evil are here both Good

28. Nature of Revelation, Power of Belief Mohammed “Mahound”“Ayesha” (20 th century)

29. and the two contraries Married” -- Blake “Good and Evil are here both Good

30. -/+ NegativePositive Deconstructing Binaries: angel and devil, believer and non-believer, self and Other, native and foreigner But what can we put in their place? Reconstructing: Models of revelation in real time, in Blake's time, in our time?

31. The Artist as Seer?

32. “[consume] natural appearance” with “a more imaginative vision” -- Blake  MODE:  Magical Realism  MODE:  Surrealism

33. Rebuild what it destroys? If as Horácio Costa argues, “it is a [characteristic] of literature…to rebuild what it destroys” (252), the ending of “The Prophet’s Hair” brings forth both a positive desire in the reader for miracles, and a world ready to receive those miracles, even as we take in Rushdie’s black humor about the bankrupt profitability of capitalism, sin and fundamentalism: three targets temporarily “destroyed” by his satire.

34. Blasphemy in the West: another Holy Hair

35. Godlessness-Godlongingness “Be the writer an atheist or a believer, the…figure of God rests in the corner of his or her desktop every time he or she decides to meddle in His lofty, awesome terrains… (Costa 246).