Rushdie Haunted by his unholy Ghosts — Page 133
Rushdie: Haunted By His Unholy Ghosts 133 his book would stir up among devout Muslims. In other words, he knew exactly what he was doing and he cannot plead otherwise. ’ Roald Dahl ends his letter by making a very noteworthy obser- vation which has been missed by most of the western media and Rushdie’s supporters : ‘In a civilised world we all have a moral obligation to apply a modicum of censorship to our own work in order to reinforce this principle of free speech. ’ The Times (20 February 1989) published another article entitled ’Penguin under fire for ignoring expert advice’ by Andrew Morgan and Peter Davenport. The article discusses Penguin’s consultation with Mr. Khushwant Singh, the Penguin editorial consultant in India in the summer of 1988. He had said that he was positive that the manuscript would ‘cause a lot of trouble. There are several de- rogatory references to the Prophet and the Koran, and Muhammad is made out to be a small-time impostor. ’ This was following an earlier rejection of the manuscript by him on the grounds that it was ‘lethal’. Mr. Singh met with the Penguin Group marketing director in London, who is also chairman of Penguin India. ‘He was a little surprised and peeved because they had paid a lot of advance royal- ties’. The payment of ‘advance royalties’ for ‘a book of fiction’(?), or for any book for that matter, is almost unheard of. It is also a well- known fact that the sum involved was in the region of a million dollars. There must have been something out of the ordinary as regards this novel when you consider that the most lucrative liter- ary award in Britain is only £34,000 for the David Cohen British Literature Prize. Something was certainly amiss. Such a large amount of money in advance royalties reeks of conspiracy and shady dealings only associated with the Mafia and the like. This payment also suggests that the author was being paid for endangering his life as he was to be involved in the greatest gamble of his life. And when you consider that the publishing company making the payment is of Jewish predilection and the literary attack is on