Fatwa helped me write: Rushdie

LONDON: Controversial author Salman Rushdie says the best thing that has happened to him during the fatwa days was that he could write his latest novel Shalimar the Clown.
    
Fifty-nine-year-old Rushdie who lived for many years in hiding when his novel The Satanic Verses prompted death threats from Muslim leaders in 1988 said one of the things he made clear at the start of the fatwa was that he had to find a way of seeing his child who was nine then.

 

"We put up a quite elaborate smokescreen -- we decided it would be better if people believed I couldn't see my family. But in fact I did see them. It was very, very complicated: I couldn't go to (his third wife) Clarissa's house, and for a long time Zafar didn't know where I lived.

 

"In a way it was fortunate for him that his mother and I weren't living together, because the structure of his life was not disrupted," he told The Sunday Times.

 

After the first year and a half, contrary to public perception, the writer said, "I led quite a settled life. I was in one house and he'd come and go, though he would be brought there by the police. The police have these sports facilities around London and we'd play ping pong or throw a rugby ball around."

 

Stating that he tried to phone his son each day, Rushdie said he kept his son informed of what was happening.

 

"One thing that really mattered to me during the fatwa was the fact I wrote this book for him. I think he (son) really loved it but he was also a very good critic of it", he said.