DAYTON, Ohio (AP) – Salman Rushdie was honored on Sunday at the Dayton Literary Peace Prize event, where he received a lifetime achievement award. This recognition comes three years after he was brutally attacked during a lecture in New York, marking the release of his first fiction work since the incident.
The Dayton Literary Peace Prizes are awarded annually and celebrate both the literary excellence of the authors and their commitment to promoting peace through their writings. Notably, Dayton, Ohio, was the site where negotiations took place that ultimately led to the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995. These accords were crucial in ending a brutal war in the Balkans, a conflict characterized by ethnic cleansing that resulted in the deaths of over 300,000 people and displaced approximately one million residents.
At 78 years old, Rushdie is renowned for his 1988 novel, “The Satanic Verses,” which features a controversial dream sequence about the Prophet Muhammad. This specific content led to accusations of blasphemy and prompted Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to call for Rushdie's death in 1989, forcing the author into a prolonged period of hiding. Following the attack in 2022, Rushdie suffered severe injuries, including blindness in one eye. His assailant, Hadi Matar, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the attack, which he undertook while allegedly seeking to fulfill Khomeini's fatwa, despite being born years after the book's publication.
In his acceptance speech, Rushdie reflected on the challenges writers face in discussing peace amid violent conflicts around the world, citing ongoing issues in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan. He poignantly remarked, “A book cannot stop a bullet. A poem cannot intercept a bomb,” emphasizing the limitations of literature in the face of violence.
Despite these challenges, Rushdie expressed that literature can foster solidarity with those suffering in conflict zones, including the journalists who often put their lives at risk to inform the world. He noted, “We can enlarge their voices by adding our voices to their voices,” and stressed the importance of understanding perspectives beyond one’s own experience. He believes literature can illuminate the realities of others, allowing readers insight into lives shaped by different circumstances.
Rushdie's attacker, Hadi Matar, traveled from his home in Fairview, New Jersey, to target Rushdie at the Chautauqua Institution in New York, about 70 miles southwest of Buffalo. This act of violence served as a chilling reminder of the continued threats faced by writers and intellectuals who dare to challenge prevailing narratives or bring forth sensitive topics through their work.
In 2024, Rushdie published a memoir titled “Knife,” which recounts his experiences of the attack and was recognized as a finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction. His latest piece, marking his 23rd literary work, is “The Eleventh Hour,” a compilation that includes three novellas and two short stories.
Previous recipients of the lifetime achievement award include esteemed figures such as former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, and feminist icon Gloria Steinem, alongside celebrated authors like Margaret Atwood, John Irving, Barbara Kingsolver, and Studs Terkel. This award, formally known as the Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award, honors the legacy of the American diplomat who played a pivotal role in the Dayton Peace Accords.
This year's other honorees included Kaveh Akbar, recognized for his novel “Martyr!,” which explores the life of a poet and the son of Iranian immigrants grappling with a complex family history, and Sunil Amrith, awarded for “The Burning Earth,” a historical analysis of how empires, wars, and the freedom of human mobility have shaped the global environment.
