Rushdie reveals Valentine's tradition: a fatwa reminder

Award-winning author and essayist Salman Rushdie got back into the classroom on Tuesday, teaching his first world literature class at Atlanta's Emory University.

In addition to counting Rushdie as its writer-in-residence for the next five years, Emory is now also the holder of his literary archive, which includes journals, letters, e-mails, photos, unpublished works and manuscripts — including more than 1,000 typewritten pages from his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses.

Asked why he chose to donate his archive to Emory, a school which he had only visited once before for during a 2004 lecture series, Rushdie replied simply: "Because they asked me and nobody else ever had."

Rushdie spoke to reporters on Tuesday — the eve of the 18th anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran's fatwa, a religious edict,against him for allegedly insulting Islam in The Satanic Verses.

The British-Indian author faced death threats from supporters of Khomeini and subsequently spent 10 years in hiding until, in 1998, the Iranian government said it would no longer support or encourage the edict.

Rushdie said he still receives a "sort of Valentine's card" each year on Feb. 14 reminding him of the fatwa.

"It's reached the point where it's a piece of rhetoric rather than a real threat," he said on Tuesday. "It's been a long time since it was a serious concern."

Rushdie will teach more than a dozen Emory graduate students in a weekly literature seminar. He is also scheduled to host a public lecture later in February.

The 59-year-old writer, who has lectured at university campuses worldwide, added that Emory would be his only long-term commitment with a U.S. school because he wanted to focus on writing more novels.

Rushdie's archive is the latest significant addition to Emory's library, which is also home to archives from Ted Hughes, British poet laureate from 1984 until his death in 1998, and Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet Seamus Heaney.

Officials are cataloguing the Rushdie archive and it is expected to open to scholars over the coming year.