Sir Salman Rushdie has told the Italian prime minister to “be less childish and grow up” after she sued a prominent Italian writer for calling her a “bastard” over her hardline views on migrant crossings into Italy.
As reported by the Telegraph, Roberto Saviano, the author and investigative journalist, was found guilty of defamation in October after insulting Georgia Meloni during a TV discussion about a six-month-old baby from Guinea who died while crossing the Mediterranean with his mother.
“All the bullshit [Ms Meloni says about], sea taxis, cruises [for migrants],” he said. “All I can say is: bastards, how could you? Meloni, Salvini: bastards.”
Mr Saviano made his name with Gomorrah, a book about the Camorra mafia of Naples which has been turned into a film and TV series. He has lived under 24-hour police protection since publishing Gomorra in 2006, and has a history of clashing with Right-wing politicians.
Ms Meloni sued Mr Saviano while she was in opposition, prior to becoming Italy’s first female prime minister in Oct 2022.
He was fined a symbolic €1,000 (£860) in what was seen as a test of freedom of expression in a country where defamation can be punished with up to three years’ imprisonment.
Speaking at the Turin Book Fair on Thursday, British-American novelist Sir Salman said he disapproved of the case.
“At my personal risk, I have to say that politicians should grow a thicker skin because a politician today, as well as having great power, also has great authority,” he said, according to Ansa, Italy’s national news agency.
“So it is normal that some of the people should speak about them directly, even badly, also using a bad word like the one Roberto used. I would give this lady a piece of advice – to be less childish and to grow up.”
Sir Salman has lived with a bounty on his head ever since his Booker Prize-winning novel, The Satanic Verses, attracted the ire of Islamists the world over after it was published in 1988. Hardline clerics, community leaders and protesters condemned it as blasphemous. Copies were burnt, protests organised, and effigies of the author hanged, until eventually this agitation caught the attention of Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini who issued his fatwa in 1989, offering $3 million to anyone who would kill the author, or anyone involved in its publication and distribution.
Ahead of a speech in August 12, 2022, he was attacked on stage by an Islamist sympathiser and stabbed in the chest, liver, hand, face and neck. Sir Salman spent six weeks in hospital, and has lost the sight in his right eye.
