Forbidden Books

The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie epitomizes contemporary book censorhip. The novel was published by Viking Pengüin in 1988,  causing a bitter controversy between the Western priciple of freedom of speeh and Muslim's outrage. Indeed, in 1989 the UK and the Iran broke diplomatic relations over the Rushdie incident.
After the first book was published, the author became the target of a FATWA ( a death sentences issued by the Muslim clergymen), whereby all pious muslims were urged to assassinate Salman on charges of heresy and apostasy.
In fact, all the controversy may have been caused by a mistranslation of the title into Arabic. "Verses" was translated as "ayat", which is the arabic for "the verses of the Coran" ( exclusively!).Thus, the novel was seemingly denoting that the entire Coran was satanic.
Most of the translators that worked on the novel were systematically murdered but Salman and his family became "intelectual and polititcal" refugees in the UK.
After the FATWA was issued, most Muslims countries prohibited the book. To the contrary, both in the UK and the USA the novel garnered critical acclaim immediately and, to date, the book has been an all-time best seller in the history of Viking Publisher.