Rushdie Haunted by his unholy Ghosts — Page 151
Rushdie: Haunted By His Unholy Ghosts 151 consider the doubtful character of the writer who had long before rid himself of all scruples and who was only intent on hankering after his own interests. NOBE L PR I Z E FOR RUSH DI E ? The reward for Rushdie for ‘stirring things up’ yet again could well have been another Booker Prize, for which he was said to be fa- vourite by the literary critics. Andy Miller of Waterstone’s called it ‘a sure-fire bet for the Booker Prize’; but Guy Walters of The Times put Rushdie on a much higher pedestal for the fact that he was in line for a third Booker Prize. ‘To win one Booker Prize may be regarded as cleverness, to win two looks like genius, and to win three will be an act of deification. ’ (The Times, 5 October 1995). Rushdie has already, in 1994, been named as the first President of the International Parliament of Writers, to add to his already growing number of international honours and decorations. With this third Booker Prize also almost under his belt, the next obvious step in Rushdie’s rapid rise to the dizzy heights of fame and glory would have been the Nobel Prize for Literary Fiction ! The judges should, however, be warned. Rushdie does not take defeat with honour. As Philip Howard, the literary editor of The Times mentions the debacle that followed the failure of one of his earlier novels, Shame, to win the Booker Prize after it was made the favourite to do so : ‘It (Shame) was the favourite to win the Booker. When it did not, Rushdie took it badly. He leapt to his feet and harangued the judges and passers-by. ’ (The Times, 15 February 1989). Perhaps it was this intense passion and desire for fame and glory that Rushdie flaunted which made him the target for the Judaeo- Christian conspirators against Islam, who then took him under their wing and slowly but surely nurtured him to become part of their spiteful and implacable crusade to further defame and distort the name of Islam.