Salman Rushdie should win the Nobel Literature, according to French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy/
The writer Salman Rushdie, hospitalized in serious condition after being stabbed in the United States, must obtain the Nobel Prize for Literature, which will be awarded in October, pleads the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy in the Sunday newspaper (JDD) .
“I can’t imagine any other writer having the audacity, today, to deserve it more than him. The campaign begins now”, writes Bernard-Henri Lévy about the British naturalized American author. Threatened with death since a “fatwa” from Iran in 1989, a year after the publication of the “Satanic Verses”, Salman Rushdie was stabbed a dozen times on Friday.
According to the rules of the Nobel Prize for Literature, the supreme reward for a writer, the list of five finalists has already been decided since May and the jury is currently reading all of their work. This list is confidential and it is therefore not possible to know if Salman Rushdie, often approached for the Nobel, is included. The announcement of the winner will take place at the beginning of October in Stockholm.
“This writer punished for having written, for thirty years, free texts and which make free deserves compensation”, judge Bernard-Henri Lévy in the long text published by the JDD, entitled “Immortality of Salman Rushdie”. According to the philosopher, “this act of absolute terror which, beyond his stabbed body and his books, is a terror on all the books and all the words of the world, calls for a brilliant response”.
The French philosopher, nicknamed BHL, is an influential figure on the French political, philosophical and literary scene, who is committed to several causes, particularly in the Middle East.
Last year, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Tanzanian novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah.