British-American writer Salman Rushdie has warned of a threat to freedom of expression in Western countries unprecedented in his lifetime. The Indian-born author said so in a pre-recorded acceptance speech at the British Book Awards on Monday night.
The 75-year-old, who lives in the USA, received a special award at the event. As an example, Rushdie cited the pressure on libraries and schools in the US, where ideological groups wanted to ban books with certain content. “This is quite remarkably alarming and we need to be very aware of it and fight it very vehemently,” said Rushdie, who died last year narrowly escaped an assassination attempt and has been blind in one eye ever since.
He also opposed efforts to purge historical books of terms perceived as offensive, as is the case with works by children’s author Roald Dahl and happened to James Bond author Ian Fleming may be. “The idea of trying to make James Bond politically correct is almost whimsical,” he said.
Instead, he advocated allowing “books of their time to come to us and be of their time”. The British Book Award, which has existed since 1990, has been presented by the industry magazine since 2017 The Bookseller forgive. Rushdie received the “Freedom to Publish” special award, which was only awarded for the second time.