Peeling the Onion to the Point of Tears: Moments of Unadulterated Emotion in Rushdie

© 1997 Anthony R. Guneratne, Department of English Language and Literature, National University of Singapore

Moments of Unadulterated Emotion occur not only in Rushdie's eloquent and remarkably Bakhtinian defense of his novel, The Satanic Verses, in Imaginary Homelands (see 393-414), but also in his concessions to terror as recorded in a number of places (in chronological detail, in fact, in The Index on Censorship 18.5 [May/June 1989]: 14-15) and his defense by such writers as Soyinka (see the same issue in The Index on Censorship, 20-21, 30). Note that The Moor's Last Sigh is an extended attack on anti-Muslim Hindu fundamentalism, and that Rushdie appears to be genuinely apologetic for having caused offense to some individual Muslims (see his "My Decision" in The Index on Censorship 20.1 [Jan. 1991]: 34) if not for his attacks on hypocrisy and intolerance.


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