Salman Rushdie, no stranger to controversy, has found himself in the midst of a battle over words once again, this time concerning a memoir by Ron Evans, one of the author's former bodyguards, the Guardian reported. Evans, an officer of Scotland Yard's Special Branch, a London police division focused on matters of national security, was assigned to protect Rushdie after the fatwa was issued against him in 1989. Rushdie asserts that Evans has fabricated many of his recollections of that time in his book, On Her Majesty's Service, and the Booker Prize–winning author has threatened legal action should the book be published as is.
According to Rushdie, the book portrays him as "mean, nasty, tight-fisted, arrogant and extremely unpleasant," and also falsely represents the character of the officers who protected him. (The book includes references to bodyguards drinking on the job and mistreating the author.) Rushdie, who told the Guardian that his relationship with officers was amiable and that he remains friendly with some of them, claims that Evans was a driver and has exaggerated his role in the protective operations.
"This is not a free speech issue, this is libel—there is a difference between those two things," Rushdie told the Guardian. "I can defend the truth, I will not have my character destroyed and presented to the world as something that it is not."
Rushdie's legal council has already encouraged the publisher, John Blake Publishing, founded by the eponymous former tabloid columnist, to withdraw the book, which was originally scheduled for release on Monday. John Blake has rescheduled publication for August 11 in hopes that Rushdie will reconsider his views on the book, which Blake described as "light-hearted and affectionate."
