The author of Midnight's Children and winner of many of the world's most prestigious literary awards, Salman Rushdie is most widely known for his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses and the 2022 attempt on his life. An international furor was sparked after Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, a religious decree that Rushdie and his publishers should be killed on sight. For Rushdie himself, it led to years of hiding, moving from house to house with armed policemen, and living under an alias, Joseph Anton. More than a memoir, this Best Book of 2012 (London's Economist) is a frank, profound, sometimes surprisingly funny examination of the inalienable right to—and need for—free speech.