Naguib Mahfouz Prize. Like many Egyptian writers and intellectuals, Mahfouz was on an Islamic fundamentalist "death list". He defended Salman Rushdie after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini condemned Rushdie to death in 1989, but also criticized his "The Satanic Verses" as "insulting" to Islam. Mahfouz believed in freedom of expression, and, although he did not personally agree with Rushdie's work, he did not believe that there should be a "fatwa" condemning him to death for it. In 1989, after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's "fatwa" calling for Salman Rushdie and his publishers to be killed, Mahfouz called Khomeini a terrorist. Shortly after Mahfouz joined 80 other
Luka and the Fire of Life Luka and the Fire of Life Luka and the Fire of Life is a novel by Salman Rushdie. It was published by Jonathan Cape, Random House in 2010. It is the sequel to "Haroun and the Sea of Stories". Rushdie has said "he turned to the world of video games for inspiration" and that "he wrote the book for his 13-year-old son". The book opens with protagonist Luka and his father Rashid walking home from Luka's school in the fictional city of Kahani in the land of Alifbay. They pass the Great Rings of Fire circus, where, upon seeing the