British publishers cringe away from memories of Satanic Verses

LONDON, Jan 25: An English writer, whose latest novel is likely to incense sections of Britain's Muslim population and perhaps also Salman R...

LONDON, Jan 25: An English writer, whose latest novel is likely to incense sections of Britain’s Muslim population and perhaps also Salman Rushdie has accused Britain’s publishing world of cowardice. David Caute, described as a historian, novelist and biographer is set to publish his novel, Fatima’s Scarf’, himself, after it was turned down by all the leading publishers of fiction in this country.

The book’s central character is an exiled Egyptian novelist, Gamal Rahman, who Caute describes as a “literary troublemaker”. Although Caute says that Rahman is not based on Salman Rushdie, the plot of Fatima’s Scarf’, closely echoes the events, in Britain nine years ago, following the publication of Satanic Verses’ and the issuing of Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa.

In Caute’s novel, Rahman writes a “blasphemous” book, The Devil: An Interview’, attacking orthodoxy in Islam.

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This enrages the Muslim population of a fictional northern English town. A mob burns the book and racial and religious tension erupt. Afatwa is issued against Rahman, who denounces God. Rushdie’s Satanic Verses’ was also followed by rioting and book burning in Bradford, and eventually Khomeini’s fatwa.

Caute said that he had spent 18 months trying to persuade the top 25 British publishers to publish Fatima’s Scarf’. He has annoyed publishers by making public the reasons that he was given for his book’s rejection. The publishing director of Bloomsbury Press, Liz Calder wrote to Caute saying, “I published Salman Rushdie’s earliest three novels. After some difficulties on the personal front over Satanic Verses’, restored a good relationship with him. Publishing your book would put this at risk”. Calder insists that she only said this to “soften the blow”. Others like Nick Webb of Simon and Schuster described the novel as “a remarkable feat of the imagination and cultural relocation. The whole thing is brilliantly detailed and conceived”. However, Webb told journalists that his only reason for turning down what he described as a "…a literary tour de force” was “on commercial grounds”. Max Eilenberg of Secker and Warburg called the novel “a marvellously written, acute and provocative satire”, but could find no reason to publish it.

Caute described the publishers who turned down his book as “downright cowardly”. There is, he said, “a pervading culture of timidity, of huge cowardice… The events in Bradford and the Ayatollah’s fatwa left an indelible mark on publishers”. Caute who has written nine other books says, “To me, this is my best novel and I am not going to let them bury it”. He said he had already put up 14,000 pounds to publish the book under the imprint Totterdown Books this April. He has, he said, an agreement with a “medium sized” distribution company to market the book. He intends an initial print run of 3000 copies, but the actual run will be decided once they asses the response of bookshops.

Caute, who was formerly literary editor of the New Statesman, reported on Satanic Verses’ controversy for that magazine. He said, “My novel is sympathetic to the Islamic community, but not to fatwas, extremists and book burners. It is difficult to satirise Islam, but I have attempted to do so”.

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He says that he did not fear receiving death threats from Muslims. He said, “I don’t know if it will upset people. It may, it may not but I have no worries. History does not repeat itself. Salman Rushdie was deemed an apostate because he was raised in Pakistan. That is not my situation”.