Dear Independent Booksellers, In February 1989, my novel The Satanic Verses was published in the United States a few

days after the Khomeini fatwa; in the eye of the storm, in other words. What happened in the months that followed was something I will never forget. American writers gathered together in a show of almost complete unity to defend freedom of speech. Thousands of ordinary Americans wore I am Salman Rushdie buttons to express their solidarity. The independent booksellers of America put the book in windows, mounted special displays, and courageously stood up for freedom against censorship, refusing to allow the choices of American readers to be limited by the threats of an angry despotic cleric far away. The bravery of independent booksellers inuenced other stores to follow their lead, and in the end a key battle for free expression was wonnot by politicians who, as usual, arrived cautiously and tardily at the battleeld, but by the determination of ordinary people that it not be lost. I have never ceased to be grateful for what the independent booksellers of America did in 1989 and, now that I have nally been able to tell the full story of that battle, Im glad to be able to honor your courage and give you all your due, both in the pages of my book and in what I will say about it when it is published. This is just to thank you personally. It was a privilege to be defended by you, and I have been trying, and will continue to try, to be worthy of that defense.

RU S H D I E
JOSEPH ANTON
A MEMOIR
O N SALE SEP TEMBER 18 , 2012 A RANDOM HOUSE HARDCOVER

SALMAN