Nine months after he was stabbed on stage and lost an eye in the attack, renowned writer Salman Rushdie has warned in a rare public speech that freedom of speech in the West is under threat, News.ro reports citing the BBC.

Salman RushdiePhoto: Dennis Van Tine/STAR MAX/IPx/AP/Profimedia

75-year-old Salman Rushdie sent a video message at the British Book Awards on Monday, where he received the Freedom to Publish award.

Rushdie said that, in his opinion, freedom of speech in the West is now at a critical stage. “Now that I’m here in the US, I have to look at a huge attack on libraries and children’s books in schools. An attack on the very idea of ​​a library,” he said. “This is extremely disturbing and we must be well aware of it and fight it very hard,” Salman Rushdie commented.

“If a book is hard to accept, don’t read it, read another book”

The award-winning author also criticized the rewriting of old books to bring them up to date and remove language deemed offensive. Books should “come to us from their time and be from their time,” Rushdie noted. “And if that’s hard to accept, don’t read it, read another book,” he added.

Salman Rushdie appeared in the video wearing glasses, with a colored lens covering his damaged eye, and appeared weaker than usual, the BBC said. The attack, which he became a victim of nine months ago, happened at a literary festival in New York. Before the attack, Rushdie was about to give a speech on stage in New York about the US being a haven for exiled writers at risk of prosecution.

Rushdie is best known for his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses. The American-British writer of Indian origin had to hide for almost 10 years after the publication of The Satanic Verses. The book, which some Muslims called blasphemous, was banned in several countries months after its publication and sparked protests in bookstores around the world. Iran’s leader also called for Rushdie’s assassination in 1989 and placed a $3 million bounty on the author’s head.

Monday’s British Book Awards honored Salman Rushdie with the Freedom to Publish Award, which “recognizes the determination of authors, publishers and booksellers who stand up against intolerance despite the threats they continue to face”.