Salman Rushdie’s 1988 novel, “The Satanic Verses,” made him the target of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who denounced the book as blasphemous and issued a fatwa calling for his assassination. Rushdie spent years trying to escape the shadow the fatwa cast on him, and for some time, he thought he succeeded. But in 2022, an assailant attacked him onstage at a sp ... Show More
Oct 27
Nate Silver Predicts a ‘Momentous’ Midterm
“If the election goes roughly as the polls say it will go, then in some ways it would mark the end of the Trump era,” Nate Silver told me.The midterms are a week away, and it looks entirely possible that Democrats will win not just the House, but also the Senate. Democrats are po ... Show More
55m 5s
Jun 2024
Salman Rushdie - ‘I’d rather have had a different life’
TW: this episode contains graphic descriptions of violence and injuries. Two years ago, Sir Salman Rushdie, one of the most celebrated and famous authors in the world was on stage at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York, when a figure dressed in black clothes and a mask ... Show More
53m 39s
Nov 2025
In 'The Eleventh Hour,' Salman Rushdie writes about morality, revenge and ghosts
Salman Rushdie lived for decades under a death sentence and survived a knife attack three years ago. His latest book The Eleventh Hour is his first work of fiction since that near-death experience. These short stories and novellas center around the end of life, what might come af ... Show More
12 m