Emory University in Atlanta announced on October 6 that Salman Rushdie, the former president of PEN American Center and the author of Midnight's Children (Jonathan Cape, 1980), The Satanic Verses (Viking, 1988), and most recently, Shalimar the Clown (Random House, 2005), has accepted a five-year teaching position as Distinguished Writer in Residence in the university's English department. Beginning in the spring of 2007, he will teach graduate seminars, participate in undergraduate classes, advise students, and deliver public lectures.
Rushdie will also place his archive, which includes private journals detailing life under the fatwa that Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued after the publication of The Satanic Verses, at Emory's Woodruff Library. Rushdie's archive will be added to the library's other prestigious holdings, including the personal and literary papers of Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney.
"Salman Rushdie is not only one of the foremost writers of our generation, he is also a courageous champion of human rights and freedom," said James Wagner, the president of Emory University.
