It seems that the Ayatollah Kohmeini wasn’t the only party writer Salmon Rushdie annoyed.

In his autobiography, “On Her Majesty’s Service,” former Special Branch detective Ron Evans wrote that the author of “The Satanic Verses” so infuriated his British protectors that they once locked him in a cupboard while they went out for a pint or two at a nearby pub. No wonder that comedian Dennis Miller once joked that Rushie was in a “rush to die.”

Rushdie, whose book was seen by some to blaspheme Islam, led the Iranian Ayatollah to issue a fatwah for Rushdie’s death in the late ’80s and early ’90s. He had a knack for annoying the people who were supposed to protect him.

Writes the Telegraph of London: “Evans paints an unflattering picture of Rushdie as tight-fisted, rude and arrogant, and claims the team of protection officers nicknamed him Scruffy because of his unkempt appearance.”

Nobody said protecting the First Amendment (which doesn’t apply in England anyway) was easy.
For more, CLICK HERE.

Acclaimed author Salman Rushdie has a new novel out this week, The Enchantress of Florence. Already he is the author of nine previous novels, probably most notably The Satanic Verses, which so enraged the late Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran that he put a bounty on Rushdie.
Says the Random House Web site: “The Enchantress of Florence is the story of a woman attempting to command her own destiny in a man’s world. It is the story of two cities, unknown to each other, at the height of their powers–the hedonistic Mughal capital, in which the brilliant Akbar the Great wrestles daily with questions of belief, desire, and the treachery of his sons, and the equally sensual city of Florence during the High Renaissance, where Niccolò Machiavelli takes a starring role as he learns, the hard way, about the true brutality of power.
“Vivid, gripping, irreverent, bawdy, profoundly moving, and completely absorbing, The Enchantress of Florence is a dazzling book full of wonders by one of the world’s most important living writers.”

Of course, Random wants you to buy the book.
The Enchantress of Florence, ISBN 978-0-375-50433-4, is retailing for $26.

If you’d like to comply with Random’s wishes or simply learn more about the book, CLICK HERE.