A real writer first and foremost

The Wall Street Journal has published an interview - in an odd format, though - with Salman Rushdie. A question and answer format would be more appropriate. In such interviews, we like to read what a writer says -in the exact, unedited version - without any commentary from the interviewer

"There was a number of ways in which such an event could cripple a writer," Mr. Rushdie says of the death sentence that lasted until 1998, when the Iranian government withdrew support for it. "One way was that it would frighten you into innocuousness – that you would suddenly try and avoid writing anything that could in any way upset anyone. Which would essentially mean you couldn't write anything. Or, it could provoke you into vindictive writing. Kind-of revenge fiction. And I thought both of those things would destroy me, because they would turn me into a creature of the attack."

Read the whole interview A Writer, Not a Martyr