Salman Rushdie warns US book bans threaten free expression globally

By Chris Martlew 

Booker Prize-winning author Salman Rushdie warned that the banning of books in parts of the US is contributing to “unexpected amounts of pressure” on free expression around the world. 

“I would never have imagined it,” the Indian-born novelist told Bloomberg’s The Mishal Husain Show during a wide-ranging conversation in London. The banned books include “some of the best books ever,” Rushdie said, including Beloved by Toni Morrison and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. 

“One of the reasons why people like me wanted to live in America is because of the fact that free speech is enshrined in the Constitution,” said Rushdie, who has lived in the US since 2000. 

 

The Mishal Husain Show is a new podcast from Bloomberg Weekend. Listen to the full conversation with Salman Rushdie from Dec. 5. 

PEN America, an advocacy group, has documented nearly 23,000 book bans in US public schools since 2021, which it claims is “without precedent.” 

Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children was twice named the best of all Booker Prize-winners, and his new collection of short stories, The Eleventh Hour, revisits the same neighborhood portrayed in that 1981 novel. It also touches on the issues of free speech and public debate. 

Speaking to host Mishal Husain, Rushdie called book bans “dangerous,” adding that many of the books “deal with America seen from the perspective of people who are not White.” 

“If all you hear is one version — which is the version of the dominant race — then that’s potentially very destabilizing,” he added. 

The US Department of Education has previously dismissed criticism of book bans as a “false narrative,” defending what it sees as “commonsense procedures by which to evaluate and remove age-inappropriate material.” 

‘Let voices be heard’ 

Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses was banned in India in 1988 by then-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, prompting the author to publish an open letter in the New York Times in response. The ban was lifted in 2024. 

In 1989, Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death. He lived for many years in hiding, publishing a memoir of that period, Joseph Anton, in 2012. In 2022, Rushdie was stabbed multiple times at an event in New York and left blind in one eye.  

“I’ve been involved in quite a lot of free speech issues,” the author said.  

Rushdie pointed to “echoes” between the US and India, citing limits on press freedoms in that country under current Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “Beyond that, there seems to be a desire to rewrite the history of the country, essentially to say ‘Hindus good, Muslims bad,’” Rushdie said. Modi recently wrote an open letter urging India’s youth to remain “committed to the values of democracy.” 

Rushdie also said the UK government’s decision to designate Palestine Action as a proscribed terrorist group was “probably a mistake.” The decision has led to the arrest of hundreds of people who displayed signs reading: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”  

“My view has always been let voices be heard, especially if I disagree with them,” Rushdie said. “It’s no trick to allow somebody to hold up a placard that you agree with.”