Earlier this week, Salman Rushdie was at Duke University to deliver the annual John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute's Distinguished Lecture. In his speech, titled "Public Events, Private Lives: Literature and Politics in the Modern World," the novelist told the audience to "push out boundaries" and warned that "the consequences for the writer can be very serious."
When he was done, the Durham Herald-Sun reported, it was time for questions from the audience.
"You have spoken about how other writers have suffered because of what they've written," asked a young woman. "Have you yourself ever felt endangered?"
Rushdie, with a neatly trimmed goatee and looking quite professorial, giggled briefly. "There's a short answer," he replied. "Yes."
"Thou shalt not extinguish thine anger, but shall master it,
that thy conscience may not be blunted by adjustment
to wrong causes."
-The Dutch Ten Commandments to Foil the Nazis
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