The Satanic Verses controversy later wrote "God Is Not Great", a polemic against religion. The affair however led to greater caution and some degree of self-censorship when dealing with Islamic issues in the literary and other creative arts. Many religious figures in the United States and United Kingdom shared the aversion to blasphemy of pious Muslims (if not as intensely) and did not defend Rushdie like their secular compatriots. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, demanded that the government expand the Blasphemy Act to cover other religions, including Islam. Michael Walzer wrote that the response revealed an evolution of the meaning of blasphemy; it
The Satanic Verses controversy of the book's publication, and the book is Viking's all-time best seller. The author of the book himself was not killed or injured as many militants wished, but visibly frustrated by a life locked in 24-hour armed guard – alternately defiant against his would-be killers and attempting overtures of reconciliation against the death threat. A week after the death threat, and after his unsuccessful apology to the Iranian government, Rushdie described succumbing to "a curious lethargy, the soporific torpor that overcomes ... while under attack"; then, a couple of weeks after that, wrote a poem vowing "not to shut up"