Salman Rushdie talks free speech ahead of Dayton Literacy Peace Prize honor

“We need to strive against the prevalence of book banning that’s going on in the country,” said Rushdie, 78. “I saw a report a couple of weeks ago which suggested that right now in the United States there are 23,000 active book bans. And these are not just any old books. These are some of the best books ever written: ‘The Catcher in the Rye,’ ‘Huckleberry Finn,’ ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ Toni Morrison’s ‘Beloved.’ The idea that there are parts of the country — some schools, some libraries — where those books could be removed, I find, in the land of the First Amendment, very sad. The First Amendment should protect those books as it protects all speech. We have to regain the ability to read without restriction.”

Rushdie, the author of 22 acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction which have been translated into more than 40 languages, is the 2025 recipient of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation’s Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award. He is being recognized for championing artistic courage, defending writers and intellectuals under threat throughout his career.

“In a moment when our world finds itself ensnared in perpetual conflict, Salman Rushdie’s persistent and courageous efforts to guide readers through experiences they often aren’t equipped to understand on their own, has never been more important,” said Nicholas A. Raines, executive director of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation, in a press statement. “Mr. Rushdie’s example of resilience and forgiveness, even in the face of violence, makes him a beacon of light within our ranks. His voice is indispensable to all who fight for peace.”

Credit: CONTRIBUTED

Credit: CONTRIBUTED

Named in honor of the U.S. diplomat who brokered the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords, the Holbrooke Award is annually given to a writer whose body of work fosters peace and global understanding. Previous recipients include Geraldine Brooks (2010), Tim O’Brien (2012), Gloria Steinem (2015), Margaret Atwood (2020/2021), Wil Haygood (2022), Sandra Cisneros (2023) and President Jimmy Carter (2024) among others.

He will receive the honor at the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation’s gala Nov. 9 at the Dayton Arcade. Joshua Carter, fourth grandchild of President Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, will introduce and award the Holbrooke citation to Rushdie.

“I’m very touched and flattered by the award,” Rushdie said. “I know Mr. Holbrooke’s work with the Peace Corps and his work on his work on behalf of HIV and AIDS, so it’s obviously a very imminent man for whom the award is named. And it’s a privilege to be associated with it.”

‘Literature always works in the cause of peace’

Rushdie’s numerous accolades include “Midnight’s Children” winning the Booker Prize in 1981, being knighted for his services to literature in 2007, receiving the PEN/Pinter Prize in 2014 and being honored with Germany’s Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in 2023.

“I think literature always works in the cause of peace,” Rushdie said. “There is something about the art of writing which is intended to bring people together and show people how other people live. It’s a very positive force in the world. It works for the good. I’m proud to have had a quite long career in the field. It’s been a long period of serious work, I think, and it’s wonderful to have it recognized.”

Credit: AP

Credit: AP

His forthcoming book, “The Eleventh Hour: A Quintet of Stories” (Random House), will publish Nov. 4. He particularly credits “Midnight’s Children” and “Haroun and the Sea of Stories” among his most pleasantly surprising works.

“It never occurred to me ‘Midnight’s Children’ would become the global phenomenon it became and a book which so many writers have been kind enough to say was important to them in an influential way,” Rushdie said. “Also, the afterlife of ‘Haroun and the Sea of Stories,’ which, essentially, I wrote for my son when he was 10 going on 11 and is now 46, has been really delightful. People who read it when they were children are now reading it to their children. You want your books to endure and to be relevant and interesting to people who weren’t even alive at the time you wrote the book.”

‘His writing has helped bring down barriers between cultures’

On Nov. 8 at the Victoria Theatre, Rushdie will be in conversation with David S. Rohde, a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting.

Rohde is the national security and law editor at NBC News and a former executive editor of The New Yorker website. He also worked as a foreign correspondent and national security reporter for the New York Times, Reuters and the Christian Science Monitor, and covered the wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bosnia.

“I hope to capture and convey his courage,” said Rohde, 58. “It’s difficult to think of anyone else who has risked more to defend free speech as an artist and as a journalist for decades. I also hope to get him to speak about the dangers of polarization and people being overly ideological as our country is undergoing partisan divides and political violence, particularly the killing of Charlie Kirk, the attack on state legislators in Minnesota and the assassination attempts on President Trump.”

Credit: CONTRIBUTED

Credit: CONTRIBUTED

In 2022, Rushdie was attacked with a knife in front of an audience, leaving him blind in one eye, an experience he chronicled in 2024’s “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder.” Assessing the breadth of the author’s legacy, Rhode feels his work leans into bridge-building more than some may believe.

“He’s an amazing writer and his craft is extraordinary,” Rohde said. “He’s been in the headlines for the death fatwa and assassination attempt but his writing has helped bring down barriers between cultures because he humanizes people from all over the world.”

He also has profound respect for Holbrooke, who fought on his behalf when he became a prisoner of war while reporting for the Christian Science Monitor during the Bosnian War in 1995.

“I was jailed by the Bosnian Serbs during the Dayton negotiations and Richard Holbrooke pushed to get me out of jail,” Rohde said. “Part of the Dayton Accords was my survival, so I feel a huge debt to Holbrooke and the people of Dayton. I’ve never been to Dayton and I’m eager to visit Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. I’m excited to visit the community and it’s such a credit to Dayton that they have this prize with a global perspective. This trip is going to mean a lot to me.”

Credit: HANDOUT

Credit: HANDOUT

‘Protecting the written word is more important than ever’

Rohde, who would like to see the pursuit of peace around the world hold more to the Holbrooke model of “persistent peacemaking,” also values protecting the written word in today’s cultural and political climate.

“Writing encourages greater thinking, greater sharing, of differences and writing brings down perceptions that divide us,” Rohde said. “So, protecting the written word is more important than ever in a polarized moment. Having seen civil wars in other countries and having seen ideologies and conspiracy theories drive people to be extremists, I think the worst thing you can do is restrict speech.”

Rushdie, whose summer reading list included Kiran Desai’s “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny” and Nicholas Boggs’ “Baldwin: A Love Story,” shares a similar view about the written word. He’s confident books will continue to be impactful and necessary in ever-changing times.

“The written word has a resilience that people sometimes underestimate,” Rushdie said. “Many things in the last 100 years or so was supposed to destroy books like radio and TV. New techniques which are supposed to take over actually become obsolete. But a book remains exactly the same and functioning as it has for centuries.”

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