the last book I ever read (Salman Rushdie's Joseph Anton, excerpt eleven)

from Joseph Anton: A Memoir by Salman Rushdie:

One month later the failure of this kind of quietism became clear. Ettore Capriolo, the translator of the Italian edition of The Satanic Verses, was visited at his home by an “Iranian” man who, according to Gillon, had made an appointment to discuss “literary matters.” Once the man was inside Capriolo’s home he demanded to be given “Salman Rushdie’s address” and when he didn’t get it he attacked the translator violently, kicking and stabbing him repeatedly, then running away and leaving Capriolo bleeding on the floor. By great good fortune, the translator survived.

When Gillon told him the news he was unable to avoid the feeling that the attack was his fault. His enemies had been so good at shifting the blame onto his shoulders that now he believed it too. He wrote to Mr. Capriolo to express his sorrow and his hope that the translator’s recovery would be full and quick. He never even received a reply. Afterward he heard from his Italian publisher that Capriolo was not well disposed toward him and refused to work on any of his future books.

This was as close as the fatwa had come to its mark. And after the black arrow struck Ettore Capriolo it flew on to Japan. Eight days later, at the University of Tsukuba to the northeast of Tokyo, the Japanese translator of The Satanic Verses, Hitoshi Igarashi, was found murdered in an elevator near his office. Professor Igarashi was an Arabic and Persian scholar and a convert to Islam, but that did not save him. He was stabbed over and over again in the face and arms. The murderer was no arrested. Many rumors about the killer reached England. He was an Iranian who had recently entered Japan. A footprint had been found in a flowerbed and the shoe type was only to be found in mainland China. Names of visitors entering Japan from Chinese ports of departure were correlated against the names and known work names of Islamic terrorists, and there was a match, he was told, but the name was not released. Japan produced no fuel of its own and received much of its crude oil from Iran. The Japanese government had actually tried to prevent the publication of The Satanic Verses, asking leading publishers not to produce a Japanese edition. It did not want the Igarashi murder to complicate its dealings with Iran. The case was hushed up. No charges were brought. A good man lay dead but his death was not allowed to become an embarrassment.