This article originally appeared in the SSA eMpirical No. 19 - After the Conference.

On Friday evening, guests attended the first event of the New Humanism Conference.  After a fabulous dessert gathering, Salman Rushdie was slated to receive “The First Annual Award for Outstanding Lifetime Achievement in Cultural Humanism.”  Hemant Mehta shares his experience of the ceremony honoring Salman Rushdie.

I sat in the balcony along dozens of other students.  The seats were entirely full, and many students chose to sit in the balcony aisles in the hopes of getting a clearer view for their cameras. Many students sat on the ledge recording the festivities.

A slew of eloquent introductions were made, ranging from professors Steven Pinker and Rebecca Goldstein, to a Turkish music ensemble, to Random House Executive Editor-in-Chief Daniel Menaker. 

For many students, this was their first time witnessing a literary legend and Humanist hero.  Besides his bestselling works, Salman Rushdie received unwanted international attention in 1989 when Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini declared a fatwa against Rushdie, calling for his death.  (For more information, go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salman_Rushdie)

As Harvard’s Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein said of Rushdie, he has “far too much creativity for some.”

Rushdie eventually came to the podium and spoke about his Humanism, even going so far as to declare that atheists needed a holiday of their own (his suggestion: “Atheismas”).  He later gave two readings from his most recent novel, Shalimar the Clown.

Salman Rushdie at the New Humanism Conference, with students Aaron Halfaker and Jenny Zick of University of Minnesota's CASH.

Afterwards, Rushdie answered audience questions, which ranged from wacky to serious.  His answers had similar range. 

One questioner asked if God was a good fictional character, as far as characters go.  Rushdie said he didn’t think so, opting instead for the polytheistic gods.  He threw in a jab to those gods by adding, “Their normal technique of lovemaking is rape.”

When asked what advice he would give to an aspiring writer, Rushdie stated that “If you need the advice, don’t do it.” 

The last questioner asked if Rushdie would do it again—would he have written The Satanic Verses and gone through the personal hell, and hiding he was forced to deal with due to the fatwa?  Initially, Rushdie’s blunt, witty answer was “I’d prefer not to.”  However, he continued by saying he was proud of his work and that he was glad people could now read the novel the way it was meant to be read: as a work of fiction that could be praised or criticized. 
 

This article originally appeared in the SSA eMpirical No. 19 - After the Conference.