Salman Rushdie to be ‘Caught in the Creative Act’ April 9

Writer Salman Rushdie will read from and discuss his book, “Midnight’s Children,” Wednesday, April 9, at the University of South Carolina as part of the university’s popular student-community course, “Caught in the Creative Act.”

Rushdie will speak at 5:45 p.m. in Belk Auditorium of the Moore School of Business, located at the corner of Barnwell and College streets. The event, which is free and open to the public, also will feature questions from the audience.

Two public events are planned Monday, April 7, in preparation for Rushdie’s talk. The “Caught in the Creative Act” lecture on “Midnight’s Children” will be held from 5:45 – 7 p.m. and will be led by Janette Turner Hospital, Carolina Distinguished Professor. After a reception, a symposium, titled “Ethics, Religion and International Relations: Reflections on Salman Rushdie,” will begin at 7:30 p.m. The discussion will feature University of South Carolina faculty in the fields of religious studies, English, anthropology and law and will be moderated by Brad Warthen, editorial page editor of The State.

Both April 7 events are free and will be held in Gambrell auditorium.

Symposium panelists will include Dr. Cliff Hospital, who will discuss the Indian religious and folklore elements in “Midnight’s Children” and the history of Hindu/Muslim friction in India; Dr. Waleed El-Ansary, who will explain fatwas (Islamic religious rulings) and why Rushdie’s “Satanic Verses” led to international discord; Dr. Maimuna Huq, who will discuss Islamic culture and political movements in South Asia; and Dr. Meili Steele, who will discuss political discourse, book burnings and writing as a political act.

The symposium is sponsored by the Walker Institute for International and Area Studies.

“Midnight’s Children,” Rushdie’s second novel, earned him the Booker Prize for Fiction and international fame in 1981. The India native was forced into exile in 1989 when Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran deemed his book, “The Satanic Verses,” heretical and issued a fatwa against Rushdie. Rushdie emerged from hiding in 1998 and is a distinguished writer-in- residence at Emory University.

“Caught in the Creative Act,” in its seventh year, is an undergraduate honors college course that is open to the larger community. The format calls for students and community participants to read a variety of novels, short story and poetry collections, memoirs and literary non-fiction and then meet the authors who give a reading, discuss the creative process and answer probing questions.

Many award-winning authors have been featured, including Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, Pulitzer and/or National Book Award winners Robert Pinksy, Richard Rhodes, Robert Olen Butler and Geraldine Brooks, Commonwealth Prize winner Shauna Singh Baldwin, and many other distinguished writers ranging from Stanley Crouch and E.L. Doctorow to Susan Vreeland. Depending on the status of the visiting writer, 600 - 800 may be in the audience.

For more information about Caught in the Creative Act, visit the Web site: http://www.cas.sc.edu/cica/. For more information about the symposium on April 7, call the Walker Institute for International and Area Studies at 803-777-8180.