The Satanic Verses [Amazon], Salman Rushdie's 1988 magic realist novel, has raced to the top of Amazon's bestseller charts in the wake of his attempted murder by an Islamic fundamentalist. Rushdie, stabbed repeatedly on-stage while preparing to deliver a speech in New York, is said to be recovering well but remains likely to lose an eye. Iranian cleric Ruhollah Khomeini called for his murder more than thirty years ago, forcing Rushdie to live under police protection for many years.
Welcome to the Streisand Effect, totalitarian killers!
P.S. Note that the book isn't remotely what they claim it is. You're going to get a fabulously-written fantasy that, in passing, fictionalizes a well-attested incident in Islam's early history with a tone of dreamlike comic irony. That's it. Few of the people calling for his murder were familiar with it except as a device to deceive, distract and enrage the mob.
