The British writer of Indian origin Salman Rushdie has accused the president of the United States, Donald Trump, of “turning the Republican Party into a sect” that idolizes its leader, and has compared the president to a child.
“He is like a very fat and very old child,” he said this Friday at the Metafuturo forum, organized by Atresmedia at CaixaForum Barcelona, in a conversation with the journalist Sonsoles Ónega, under the title ‘The revenge of living (and writing)’.
Rushdie has criticized that Trump’s is not the way to run a country and has warned of the global consequences it is having, for example, in the war in Ukraine: “It’s going to depend a lot on what Trump thinks,” he warned.
The writer of ‘The Satanic Verses’ has assured that he does not regret having written it, despite the assassination attempt he suffered in 2022 when he was stabbed during a presentation in the state of New York, more than 30 years after Ayatollah Khomeini decreed a fatwa against him after that book was published.
“What I regret is what happened, but I think it is one of my best books, I am proud to have written it,” said Rushdie, who added that he is also proud that the novel survived the attacks it suffered after being published, since there were printers that did not want to print it, he detailed.
CENSORSHIP AND SELF-CENSORSHIP
He has assured that censorship creates a problem, and has warned that historically and today “the most important pressure of censorship comes from the right, conservative forces want to limit what is said”, after which he added that it is something that is happening in the United States, with the banning of some books in schools.
He has also maintained that he is concerned that young writers censor themselves out of political correctness, and has pointed out that “there is this view that it is okay to prevent certain types of speeches”, and he believes that it comes from both the progressive and conservative sides, and this makes the work of writers difficult, according to him.
“The recipe is to not give a damn. And the only way to fight against problematic restrictions is to act as if they were not there, as if they did not exist. But I think it is a difficult time,” said Rushdie, who added that if he were a young writer he would have these speeches in his head, although he believes he would muster the strength not to care.
AI IS A “PLAGIARISM MACHINE”
Regarding the emergence of Artificial Intelligence in the world of writing, Rushdie has assured that it does not pose a threat to creative writing, because it is not original, and has described it as a “huge plagiarism machine.”
However, he does consider that AI is dangerous in the creation of video images that are not real but appear so, after which he has warned that the Trump administration “has begun to publish fake videos as if they were real.”
Asked how he values the new mayor of New York Zohran Mamdani, he joked that he has a biased opinion because he is a friend of his mother, after which he added that he has run a great campaign and has positively valued the increase in participation in the elections of the new generations.