Salman Rushdie awarded German Peace Prize

Writer Salman Rushdie has been awarded a prestigious German prize for his literary work and for his resolve and positive attitude in the face of constant danger, the prize organizers said Monday, which also happened to be Rushdie's 76th birthday.

The Peace Prize of the German Book Trade said the British American author would receive the award in Frankfurt on Oct. 22.

Rushdie's writing “combines narrative vision with constant literary innovation, humor and wisdom,” the jury said. “He describes the force with which violent regimes destroy whole societies, but also the indestructibility of the individual's spirit of resistance.”

Last August, Rushdie was stabbed repeatedly while onstage at a literary festival in upstate New York.

“Despite massive physical and psychological consequences that he is still wrestling with, he continues to write — in an imaginative and deeply human way,” the German jury wrote. “We are honoring Salman Rushdie for his resolve, his positive attitude to life and for the fact that he enriches the world with his pleasure in narrating.”

Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had condemned as blasphemous passages referring to the Prophet Muhammad in Rushdie's 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses." Khomeini issued a decree the following year calling for Rushdie’s death, forcing the author into hiding, although he had been traveling freely for years before last summer’s stabbing.

The German prize, which is endowed with 25,000 euro ($27,350), has been awarded since 1950.