{"page":"\u003clink rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"https://lessonplanet.com/assets/packs/css/resources-572d6a42.css\" /\u003e\n\u003clink rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"https://lessonplanet.com/assets/packs/css/lp_boclips_stylesheets-f4d0de30.css\" media=\"all\" /\u003e\n\u003cdiv data-title='Salman Rushdie: ‘Write for readers, not for critics’ | Big Think' data-url='/boclips/videos/5e3324016c6ec06c2cf9f02c' data-video-url='/boclips/videos/5e3324016c6ec06c2cf9f02c' id='bo_player_modal'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='boclips-resource-page modal-dialog panel-container'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='react-notifications-root'\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-header'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-type'\u003e\n\u003ci aria-hidden='true' class='fai fa-regular fa-circle-play'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\nVideo\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ch1 class='rp-title' id='video-title'\u003e\nSalman Rushdie: ‘Write for readers, not for critics’ | Big Think\n\u003c/h1\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-actions'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='mr-1'\u003e\n\u003ca class=\"btn btn-success\" data-posthog-event=\"Signup: LP Signup Activity\" data-posthog-location=\"body_link_boclips\" data-remote=\"true\" href=\"/subscription/new\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGet Free Access\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"\"\u003e for 10 Days\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e!\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-body'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-info'\u003e\n\u003cdiv aria-label='Hide resource details' class='rp-hide-info' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u0026times;\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ci aria-label='Expand resource details' class='rp-expand-info fai fa-solid fa-up-right-and-down-left-from-center' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\n\u003ci aria-label='Compress resource details' class='rp-compress-info fai fa-solid fa-down-left-and-up-right-to-center' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-rating'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='resource-pool'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='pool-label'\u003ePublisher:\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003cspan class='pool-name'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='text'\u003e\u003ca data-publisher-id=\"30355360\" href=\"/search?publisher_ids%5B%5D=30355360\"\u003eBig Think\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-description'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='short-description'\u003eSalman Rushdie: ‘Write for readers, not for critics’ New videos DAILY Join Big Think Edge for exclusive video lessons from top thinkers and doers...\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003cspan class='full-description hide'\u003eSalman Rushdie: ‘Write for readers, not for critics’ New videos \u003ca href='https://bigth.ink' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'\u003eDAILY\u003c/a\u003e Join Big Think Edge for exclusive video lessons from top thinkers and \u003ca href='https://bigth.ink/Edge' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'\u003edoers\u003c/a\u003e --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Booker Prize-winning author Salman Rushdie recounts his evolution as a writer who has grown more aware of the reader and less aware of the critic. Literary reviews, famously the Times Literary Supplement, were once anonymous—and brutal. Once the Times started publishing bylines with reviews, critics suddenly got much nicer. Anonymity, especially online, is a double-edged sword. In authoritarian societies, it gives people great freedom. However anonymity is also the reason people say things online they would never say if they were in a room with you. That may be a degrading force in a highly digital society. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SALMAN RUSHDIE Salman Rushdie is a British-Indian novelist and writer, author of ten novels including Midnight’s Children (Booker Prize, 1981), Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, and The Golden House. The publication of his fourth novel \"The Satanic Verses\" in 1988 led to violent protests in the Muslim world for its depiction of the prophet Mohammad. The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a death fatwa against Rushdie, which sent him into hiding for nearly a decade. Rushdie weathered countless death threats and many assassination attempts. In June 2007, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth. In 2008 he became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was named a Library Lion of the New York Public Library. In addition, \"Midnight’s Children\" was named the Best of the Booker—the best prize-winner in the award’s 40 year history—by a public vote. In 2008, The Times of London ranked Rushdie thirteenth on their list of \"The 50 greatest British writers since 1945.\" Purchase \"Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, and The Golden House\" \u003ca href='https://amzn.to/35b0JF6' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'\u003ehere\u003c/a\u003e Transcript: You can’t really afford to think about criticism when you’re writing a book. It’s actually just too hard to write the book, to try to also second guess how people will respond to it. But I think I have quite a good sense of readers. And I think as I’ve gotten older I’ve become more and more interested in exactly how people read and what is likely to put them off and what is likely to entice them. And I’ve become sort of more conscious of the reader, you know. I think when I was younger I was just doing my thing and if readers showed up that was fine and if not that was fine too. I had a kind of very much tougher attitude towards it. But now I’m really interested in reading, in the phenomenon of reading and how if you give people information in the correct sequence you can tell them very complicated things, you know, and they’ll find those things accessible and relatable and they’ll want to find out. I mean for instance in my case I’ve always thought that comedy helps a lot. I think if you can make people laugh you can tell them almost anything. And if you can’t make them laugh there’s not a lot they want to listen to. So that’s one thing. But critics, I mean on a kind of critical response I really, you know, I can’t think about. I mean you get to this age you realize that there are people who will not like what you do no matter what you do. So I know that I could write the best book I’ve ever written and there will be some people who just won’t like it and that’s fair enough, you know. That’s why there are many different kinds of books in bookstores so people can choose what they like. So I don’t bother with that too much. I really don’t bother with critical response. I also think you get to a point when you’ve written a number of books where you become quite clear about the direction you want to go in. So my view is, you know, I’d like to go this way at the moment and I really hope that you’d like to come along. I really hope that you would enjoy the journey and so on and so on. But if you for whatever reason can’t come along on that journey then I’m still going this way. And then you just take what comes. I think on the whole it’s about an even break. I could tell you usually in advance where I’m going to get trashed and I’m usually right. But I sort of don’t care. I mean I remember in a kind of pre-Internet age there was a point where various literary magazines used to publish reviews anonymously and most famously the Times Literary Supplement would never name its critics. The idea being that it was simply the Times Literary Supplement that was giving its opinion of your work rather than any individual. 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