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
Joseph Anton: A Memoir about his life as 'Joseph Anton' in the third person rather than the first person. The book was announced as one of the 14 titles in the longlist for the 2012 Samuel Johnson Prize on 18 September 2012. Joseph Anton: A Memoir Joseph Anton: A Memoir is an autobiographical book by the British Indian writer, Salman Rushdie. It was published in September 2012 by Random House. Rushdie used "Joseph Anton" as a pseudonym while in hiding following the fatwa that had been issued by Ayatollah Khomeini, the spiritual and political leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in the midst