Salman Rushdie to join Emory University faculty

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Novelist Salman Rushdie will join the faculty of Emory University in Atlanta and donate his archive to the institution, marking the writer's first extended relationship with a university, Emory officials said Friday. Rushdie will join the school in the spring of 2007 and lead a graduate seminar, participate in undergraduate courses and deliver lectures during his five-year appointment. "We'll have one of modern literature's giants on our faculty," said Emory President James Wagner. "And students will have access to his records, and the man himself. We're very, very pleased." Rushdie, author of "The Satanic Verses," was forced into hiding for a decade after the late Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a 1989 order for Muslims to kill Rushdie because the book allegedly insulted Islam. In 1998, the Iranian government declared it would not support but could not rescind the fatwa.