Prologue - Chapter 5 Summary and Analysis

Summary:

Prologue - It is a bad day for Salman Rushdie. In addition to the realization that his marriage to novelist Marianne Wiggins is over, Rushdie has a memorial service for his friend, Bruce Chatwin, who has died of AIDS. Things get even worse when he receives a call from a BBC reporter, who informs Rushdie that the Ayatollah Khomeini has issued a fatwa, a decree in the Islamic faith popularly known as a death sentence, against him. Instantly, Rushdie knows he is in trouble. He rushes to the CBS station, where he has an interview. There, he reads the fatwa, which encourages Muslims to kill all the people associated with printing the book The Satanic Verses, including the author himself. Muslim demonstrators refer to Rushdie as "Satan Rushdie." On air, Rushdie says he wishes he had...