Johannesburg--A publisher on Monday condemned a violent assault on one of its authors in South Africa after she praised Salman Rushdie, whose work has often been criticised for alleged blasphemy against Islam.
Zainub Priya Dala was last week hit in the face with a brick by knife-wielding assailants who called her "Rushdie's bitch" a day after she expressed admiration for the Booker Prize-winning author at a writers' forum.
"We condemn completely the brutish attack," Steve Connolly, managing director of Penguin Random House in South Africa, said.
"Have we reached such a state of intolerance that we cannot listen to one writer profess admiration for another without wanting to attack her with a brick and a knife?"
Rushdie used his Twitter account to describe the attack on Dala as "appalling and disgraceful".
Rushdie spent a decade in hiding after Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa in 1989 calling for his death over his book "The Satanic Verses", which was seen as mocking the Prophet Mohammed.
Dala was attacked in the southeastern city of Durban a day after she addressed a schools' writing forum at which she said she admired Rushdie's style of writing, prompting a walkout by a group of teachers and students.
Dala told the local Sunday Times that one of three attackers "held a knife to my throat and called me 'Rushdie's bitch', and hit me with a brick."
Police said an investigation was under way and no arrests had been made since the attack on Wednesday.
Dala's debut novel, "What About Meera", published early this month, is a story of "one woman's courageous journey to freedom," according to Umuzi, an imprint of Penguin.
Rushdie remains a hate figure for some Muslim hardliners, who forced him to withdraw from a book festival in India in 2012 after death threats.
AFP
