Monday, May 10, 2010

PEN World Voices Festival: Christopher Hitchens and Salman Rushdie

Here we have an assessment of the state of free speech in the world today. Christopher Hitchens delivers the Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture at the PEN World Voices Festival, and talks with Salman Rushdie. The latter, speaking of the fatwa calling for his assassination, has this to say:
"I would just like to point out, with regard to me and the Ayatollah Khomeini, one of us is dead.
"Do not mess with novelists."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHGq_GhK080


Hitchens is his usual forthright self, holding resolutely to the primacy of free speech. More power to him.