"With a $5 million bounty on his head, the author of "The Satanic Verses" entered the age of terror before the rest of us -- having to worry about being murdered in his home, gunned down on the street, blown up on the subway. Sixteen years ago, it seemed bizarre that a man should have to live under the threat of Islamist terrorists on the other side of the globe, but now we all live that way, and Rushdie greets us with a dazzling new novel about the roots of extremism, the fragile beauty of religious harmony and the twisted strands of personal and political motives. Unlike his previous novel -- the acerbic "Fury," which, in an eerie coincidence, was released on Sept. 11, 2001 -- "Shalimar the Clown" seems to have allowed Rushdie the time and space to sublimate his terrors into a story of deep humanity and unsettling insight." -- Love Under Siege (Book World, Sept. 11)

Prize-winning author Salman Rushdie will be online Tuesday, Sept. 13, at 3 p.m. ET to field questions and comments about his internationally recognized work.

Join Book World Live each Tuesday at 3 p.m. ET for a discussion based on a story or review in each Sunday's Book World section.

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washingtonpost.com: Mr. Rushdie will be online momentarily. Please stand by.

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Washington, D.C.: Salman, Do you consider your authorial and celebrity selves to be one and the In a semi-related question: do you have any interest in adapting any of your works for the screen, either big or small?

Salman Rushdie: Celebrity is an unfortunate side-effect that gets you tables in restaurants, but also, more importantly, can be put to work, through my presidency ofAmerican PEN, in the service of writers in need.

Movies: there is a screenplay by me to The Ground Beneath Her Feet in circulation. Any producers pls get in touch.

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Los Angeles, Calif.: I see your new novel is set in part in Los Angeles and I know you've spent some time here recently.

I am wondering how you compare the city to other places you've lived such as London and NYC. How do you like it overall and how would you compare it to other places you've lived?

Salman Rushdie: I really liked LA, maybe because I wasnt working in the movie industry! And the new novel, with its multiple and diverse settings, feels very like a "decentered" LA novel to me.

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Santa Monica, Calif.: I've read 3/4 so far of "Shalimar..." I love it.

A question: I still haven't figured out the reasons for MO's name.

Salman Rushdie: His name just got stuck to him. I meant to change it but he wanted to be Max. I once knew a man called William Shakespeare, so, I thought, why not...

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Amherst, Mass.: In your book, "outsiders" play a disruptive role - the mullah and the Indian troops in the politics of Kashmir and Max in the matters of the heart. One would think that an outsider - the Ayotollah Khomeini - also played a similar role in your own life. How have your personal experiences shaped this or other novels of yours?

Salman Rushdie: The novel is about how Shalimar the clown's life is broken by outsiders, but also by insiders, notably his wife. In my case, yes, outsiders tried to break up my life, but I'm still in one piece.

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Alexandria, Va.: Hi Salman! Love your books. What are you reading these days?

Salman Rushdie: Thanks. I've been reading the new Zadie Smith, and, more weightily, the new Edith Grossman translation of Don Quixote, which is fantastic.

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Montreal, Canada: What are your thoughts on the current inter-faith relations in India and on the usage of Sharia courts instead of constitutional courts in a secular country?

Salman Rushdie: I think the Canadian idea of allowing in the Sharia is very, very dumb indeed. India has been plagued by the existence of a parallel civil code for Muslims, which essentially delivers women into the power of the mullahs.

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Norfolk, Va.: Do you experience writer's block? What do you do - or encourage others to do to unlock their creativity?

Salman Rushdie: Writer's block? Never heard of it.

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Potomac, Md.: One of my favorite novels of yours is "Shame," and the novel makes clear that, at the time, you didn't feel great enthusiasm for the political lineage of Pakistan. Although the events in Pakistan of the last 10-15 years may be too strange for fiction, I wonder, if you were to write "Shame" in 2005, how would you have characterized the past decade in Pakistani politics and how would you treat a Musharraf-type character? Thanks for the time today and keep the incredible fiction coming.

Salman Rushdie: Oddly, Shame feels more topical today than when I wrote it 22 years ago. And as for Musharraf, the character of General Raza Hyder in Shame seems to fit him pretty well.

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New York, NY: Could you tell us about your background? I am proud that you are a fellow Indian - where did you study and how did your love of writing develop?

Thanks for taking my questions!

Salman Rushdie: I studied at Cathedral School, Bombay, and later at Rugby School and King's College, Cambridge in England. As for writing, my parents used to tell me that I would say as a child that I wanted to be an author. I don't remember this myself but certainly I was a bookworm and I think my desire to write came out of that, out of the love of reading.

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Washington DC: Mr. Rushdie, The reviews have got me anxious to read your latest novel--once I'm through with Norman Mailer's "Harlot's Ghost," that is.

But I want to ask--in 1987, you wrote a novel, "The Jaguar Smile" praising the Marxist Leninist regime of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua.

Later, I understand, you met with Ortega and the commandantes in Managua.

With the defeat of Ortega in three successive elections, have you changed your views at all about Nicaragua and the former Ortega regime?

John Gizzi

Salman Rushdie: I haven't changed my mind about the Sandinistas of those days, the mid-80s, and my mind was rather more critical than you suggest.

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San Francisco, Calif.: Mr. Rushdie, thanks for being here.

Most of your work is noted for its over-the-top style, wild wordplay, and drawn-out, boiling-over expressions. Personally, I love these stylistic flourishes -- it's a major part of what draws me to your work -- but I was curious as to how you settled in on this distinct style. Did you ever experiment with more-restrained writing styles? Did you decide to write in your current style out of personal preference, appropriateness for your stories or some other reasoning?

In short, how did you find your voice?

Thanks, -an aspiring writer

Salman Rushdie: I found my voice with difficulty. It took me over 12 years of struggle. I'm not sure about yr over-the-top description, but it feels like me to me. That's what you need to find: the sentences that sound like you to you, that are nobody's sentences but your own.

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Urbana, Ill: I did my MA thesis on _Verses_, and here's a question I always promised myself I'd ask you if I ever had the chance: is Allie Cone's middle initial "N," to complete the pun on Keats' "alien corn"?

Salman Rushdie: sorry to spoil yr thesis abt Allie Cone. Answer is no.

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Fairfax Station, Va.: I have long loved your work and was happy to share "Haroun and the Sea of Stories" with my children (ages 10 and 12). They very much enjoyed it and asked if there were more. I picked out a couple of stories from "East/West", but pretty much had to leave it there until they are "ready" for your other books. Do you have plans to write anything else that might be equally appreciated by children?

Salman Rushdie: My younger son, now 8, has just ordered me to write a sequel to Haroun and the Sea of Stories, this time for him, not his older brother; so I have my marching orders.

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College Park, Md: Hello Mr Rushdie,

Your novels evince an empathy with a diverse range of people and their conditions. How do you get to know and understand people given the constraints on your freedom of movement?

Salman Rushdie: No constraints any more.

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Washington, DC: So did you or didn't you change your name to Salbass?

Salman Rushdie: This is a private matter between me and Jerry Seinfeld.

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Madison, Wisconsin: I am a Indophile and big fan of yours Rushdieji!

Why do you insist on making India(Kashmir) a nation a militaristic tyranny, when the entire world has failed in resolving conflicts with Islamic sessionists. Without India, Kashmir would be like another Taliban run Afghanistan, don't you think?

Salman Rushdie: Unfortunately I think you oversimplify the Kashmir catastrophe. The Indian army started the ruination, the jihadis finished it. "A plague on both their houses."

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Springfield, Va: Do you have a formal writing or literature education/backgrounbd? Also what are your favorite works of fiction?

Salman Rushdie: No literary training, thank goodness. I studied history which has been a big help.

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Edmond, Okla.: In some of your essays, you have described the influence of certain classical Greek and Roman authors on your work. I have always seen you as a modern-day parallel to the Roman poet Ovid, who was exiled for some unknown offense to the intolerant Emperor Augustus. The fatwa sent you into a kind of exile. Ovid died in his exile, but you have attempted to come back from your own exile, to some degree. How much do you still feel exiled or left out of the mainstream of life?

Salman Rushdie: Ovid was worse off than I am now. Which is just fine thanks.

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Philadelphia, Pa..: Let me please ask the obvious question that maybe many of uncomfortable asking: how secure do you feel making your whereabouts known where there may be (hopefully not) people out there trying to figure out how to collect five million dollars?

Salman Rushdie: do you need the money?

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Oklahoma City, Okla.: You often have blended Classical Greek mythology with Indian mythologies in your work; the story of Orpheus in "The Ground Beneath her Feet," for example. Do your think these traditions have competing worldviews--do they offer alternative ways of interpreting our lives? Or do they complement each other--do they just offer different ways of describing the same phenomena?

Salman Rushdie: I find the echoes and assonances between different mythological traditions fascinating, and their differences equally so. In the Indian version of the Orpheus story, for example, it's the woman, the goddess Rati, who rescues her husband, the god of love Kama, by persuading Shiva, who has killed him, to bring him back to life.

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NY, NY: What is the best or most memorable book that you have read on the issue of terrorism?

Thanks

Salman Rushdie: Joseph Conrad's THE SECRET AGENT.

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Cambridge, Mass.: Naipaul has for years argued a similar thesis about terrorism that you present in the book - personal problems like sex and love translate into violence while the ideological framing of the violence is mere lipstick. In this post-modern, post-ideological space, it is all about the individual. Coming from an asian society where social networks dictate personal choices, how do you reconcile it to your hypothesis about individual culpability.

Plus if we are living in this post-ideological vacuum, are there policy initiatives that can make a difference in terrorism?

Salman Rushdie: How extraordinary. Naipaul and I finally agree on something.

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Rockville, Md.: Dear Mr. Rushie- Love your books - which I think are lyrical and evocative. I have two questions for you - 1. Since so many of your books are autobiographical, how much of your characters do you draw from yourself, and from people you know? 2. Your books are suffused with historical, pop, cultural and social allusions - how much research do you put into your books, or do you merely draw on personal knowledge and experience?

Salman Rushdie: are they autobiographical? goodness, what a life I must have led!

as for the high/low culture issue, I'm just using the stuff assembled in my head, which might be Attic poetry or Bob Dylan lyrics. As I wrote somewhere, I don't feel the need to separate Homer from Homer Simpson...

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Arlington, Va.: My favourites among your books are distressingly obvious - Midnights Children - and Haroun. However, because they are meant to cater to different audiences, they read very differently. Which was more difficult to write?

Salman Rushdie: Midnight's Children took 5 years, Haroun took 1, but in both cases the difficulty lay in finding the right voice. When I found Saleem's voice for MC, the book began to write itself. Similarly, after I found the fable-like note of Haroun, it flowed freely. The finding took a lot of trial and error, though.

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Amherst, Mass.: Once you quoted Agha Shahid Ali's translation of Faiz, "You ask me about the country, whose details now escape me..". Do you ever regret leaving Bombay?

Salman Rushdie: I am very sad that my parents sold our home there. If we still had it I would be living in it, in all probability. But one can't, in the end, regret one's life. Who knows what I would or would not have written if things had bee otherwise?

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Philadelphia, Pa.: If there were particular messages or themes you would wish readers to absorb from reading your latest novel, would it include the need for better understanding among people of different cultures and religions, the need for outsiders to not disrupt the slow path towards internal healing, or what is it would you like readers to take away and put into their own lives and beliefs?

Salman Rushdie: you know, I don't like preachy books, I like books that take me into a world I like being in and tell me a story that holds my attention and make me care about the people I meet. As for "lessons," I think those are best deduced by the reader amd not dictated by the author.

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London, England: Will the blending of religious cultures through emigrration and cohabitation in the west help to mellow extremist ideology, or should radical imams and religious extremists living in the west be segregated in their host country, and/or deported?

Salman Rushdie: I think most Muslims living in the West are secularized, integrated citizens, and I loathe those radical imams and I must say I would not be sad to see the back of them. But one must be careful of not deporting the baby along with the bathwater.

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re: grossman's don quixote: Mr Rushdie,

I am currently bogged down near the end of Part I of Don Quixote, never having read it before. Please tell me it gets better! This is one of the few classics that I'm having trouble sludging through.

Salman Rushdie: It gets better.

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Washington, DC: Mr. Rushdie, I met you at the University of Pennsylvania two years ago, and again it's an honor. Do you feel the importance of the writer has shrunk since the days of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, etc.? The greatest cultural and linguistic influences nowadays seem to come from movies and popular music, less from novels and short stories and authors as celebrity icons.

Salman Rushdie: Depends where you live. I think you're right about the US, but in much of the world writers' voices are still loud, which is why tyrants so often want to silence them.

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Ann Arbor, Mich.: Mr. Rushdie,

I was lucky to be in the audience last night when you spoke in Ann Arbor. I've lived the last two years in the UK, and I'm curious if you see a difference between the types of literature being published and widely read there, as compared to the States.

It seemed that 'serious' literature (eg. Booker Prize candidates, if that's an indication) were more popular there, while thrillers and non-fiction seem to top U.S. bestseller lists.

Thank you for the reading last night!

Salman Rushdie: No, everyone's reading Harry Potter and the Da Vinci Code now. But, seriously, the readership for good books still exists, and isn't always small. I just wish it were as big as the readership for Dan Brown's brand of rubbish.

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Nashville, Tenn: Mr. Rushdie:

You mention being a bookworm as child. What books stand out in your memory from childhood?

Salman Rushdie: Books by Agatha Christie and PG Wodehouse. And among childrebn's authors, my favourites were Arthur Ransome and AA Milne. I also loved Kipling's Jungle Books.

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Bethesda, Md.: It's such a privilege for me to tell you directly how much I admire you for your courage to continue writing and maintaining a semblance of a public life in the face of such inhumanity.

The world is in your debt.

Salman Rushdie: Thank you very much.

Tell your friends.

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Just for Fun: What would you consider the 5 must-read novels of 2005? (So far!) And if you have time, why?

Salman Rushdie: I don't know, I really don't read to keep up these days. I like Patrick McGrath's Ghost Town, three novellas about NYC at different points in history, and James Meek's The People's Act of Love, set in Siberia in 1919.

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Las Vegas, Nev.: Mr. Rushdie, how have you imagined emotionaly these last 16 years with a bounty on your head? Are you still watching your back? What can you tell Americans on how to deal with this terror threat?

Salman Rushdie: My back is fine, thanks. And as I have written a number of times, the best answer to terrorism is not to be terrified. It will take a lot more than al-Qaida to topple the United States.

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Booker Prize: Mr. Rushdie,

Now that you're no longer in the running for this year's Booker Prize, is there a particular novel you are rooting for?

Salman Rushdie: Ha!

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Washington, DC: Mr. Rushdie, a follow-up question on your response regarding the Sandanistas. How can you say you were critical when you yourself said you were a sponsor of the Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign in London and in fact said about your visit to Nicaragua in July 1986: "I did not go as a wholly neutral observer. I was not a blank slate." When you were about Ortega and the commandantes, you said "They struck me as men of integrity and great pragmatism, with an astonishing lack of bitterness towards their opponents, past or present." Do you hold that view today?

Salman Rushdie: I was critical of the Sandinistas' restrictions on free speech and expressed my dislike of the evasiveness of the minister of culture, Ernesto Cardenal. However, it was plain to me that this was not a purely Marxist-Leninist regime. Some of the Sandinista directorate were Marxists (the Ortega brothers, Tomas Borge), others were businessman and intellectuals. It would have been easy to make Nicaragua an ally of the US; the deecision to smash it instead was one I opposed then and still do. Of course Daniel Ortega has turned out to be worse than anyone knew at the time. But he was not the whole story then or now.

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Washington, DC: You have publicly criticized Margaret Thatcher for her policies. Yet, in spite of your criticism, she was the first to defend your right of free speech - this was with regards to the Satanic Verses, and of course, with you criticizing her. Did you ever thank her in public for that?

Salman Rushdie: Yes. Often. But it doesn't change my mind about her government in general.

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Washington, DC: Q. some hollywood hindu might decide to read your new novel and may not appreciate your description of sita? what will be your response?

Q. is the globalisation of your work intentional or you were driven to it by the world that we have come live in?

Q are you disappointed by the booker shortlist?

Salman Rushdie: Globalization and its consequences for the novel is a subject I have spent a lot of time thinking about and so, yes, Shalimar the Clown takes the form it does in response to that.

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Fairfax, Va.: Has the Koran been subjected to a thorough critical analysis? I mean all types of analyses by all manner of experts: linguistic, anthropological, literary, historical, etc.

Do you know if Dr. Gerd Puin has published his work on this topic?

Are any Moslem scholars working on it? If not, why not?

Salman Rushdie: Much work has been done, much of it in Germany, analysing the textual origins of the Quran. Sadly much of this work is unavailable to readers in Muslim countries. The problem of the literalist view of the Quran is that it prevents proper, historicized study of the book as an event in a particular place and time.

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Washington, D.C.: What are your current views of your old friend, the drink-soaked ex-Troy popingay, who will be debating anther loon tomorrow? They are both a disgrace for Britain, I am afraid.

Salman Rushdie: who?

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Munich, Germany: Your newest novel reminds me of "The Scarlet Sword" by H.E. Bates, in which he described Kashmir as being almost too beautiful and India in 1947 as a violent place, and mentions the Pathans, the most violent of them all, fanatics, terrific and ruthless fellows, a Muslim warrior people, who eventually invade Kashmir.

Did your book, "The Satanic Verses" have something particularly aggravating for the Shiites for Ayatollah Khomeini to have issued the fatwa against you? How does the Shiite fundamentalism of Khomeini's time compare to the post 9/11 Sunni fundamentalism?

Salman Rushdie: I guess I'd better

readThe Scarlet Sword.

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South Bend, Ind: Mr. Rushdie, I am a reader, a fan, who enjoys your work. I often laugh out loud when reading you. Are you as funny in person as your novels would suggest?

Salman Rushdie: Oh, yes.

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Raleigh, NC: Mr. Rushdie,

Out of all your characters is there any one in particular you identify the most with?

Thank you for your writings.

Salman Rushdie: Aurora Zogoiby in The Moor's Last Sigh.

(He lied.)

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Philadelphia, Pa.: What are you writing currently, and what future ideas do you have?

Salman Rushdie: I have learned by embarrassing experience not to talk about unwritten books. I once made the mistake of saying I wouldn't write about India again and now here is a big novel, a lot of which is about India.

So as to future work you will have to wait and see, I'm afraid. (And so will I.)

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Washington, D.C.: "drink-soaked ex-Troy popingay"

I suspect the poster is referring to Christopher Hitchens.

Salman Rushdie: "Troy"?

Well, Mr Hitchens may or may not be drink-soaked, and popinjay doesn't contain a "g", but however much we disagree about this or even that, he is a true friend, a decent hombre, and you, poster, may be wrong about him.

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Raleigh, NC: Dear Mr. Rusdhie,

Do you think that the current administration's "War on Terror" will be beneficial to freedom and peace, or exacerbate current relations between countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan and the United States?

Thank you for all your writings.

Mariana

Salman Rushdie: I'm not a big fan of the mess in Iraq, to say the least, though I can't regret the passing of the blood-soaked Saddam regime.

The problem is that terror does exist and needs to be defeated. However I suspect that current policies are not succeeding. ("I suspect" is what we in the trade call understatement.)

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Arlington, VA: My goodness you are a marvelous writer--I read and re-absorb everything you put out. Thank you for sharing so much in such an excellent way. And I'm so glad to hear about a sequal to Haroun--reading that book is like eating candy.

Salman Rushdie: any plot ideas gratefully received. I'm still trying to work the book out.

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Washington, DC: Mr. Rushdie - It's a pleasure to have you here.

With those in the Muslim world believing you are blasphemous of the Qur'an with The Satanic Verses, how do you feel about the way Americans now feel about the about the holy book? The majority of those in the U.S. feel the Qur'an is a "death to infidels" gospel that is followed by radicals. Simple are those who believe that; however for many of them, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 are their first and only introduction to the Islam and the Qur'an.

Do you feel they (Americans) will ever see past the fundamentalism of those who attempt to distort Islamic ideals?

Salman Rushdie: well, I'm probably the wrong person to come to for a defence of any holy book, but the Quran is no more or less bloodthirsty than other such texts.

As to the last part of yr question, one of the things I try to do in Shalimar the Clown is to portray the gentle, Sufistic Islam that existed in Kashmir until the jihadis arrived to try to snuff it out. The process of increasing understanding is a slow one, but we all have to go on trying.

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Salman Rushdie: Thank you all very much for your comments and questions. I've never done one of these before. It has been a lot of fun. Goodbye!

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