89.5

“Words for Salman Rushdie.” New York Times Book Review, 12 March, 1, 28–29. In response to the Salman Rushdie crisis, 28 writers from 21 countries, offer words of support to him. Mailer, Ralph Ellison, Thomas Pynchon and Susan Sontag represent the U.S. Mailer says: “‘My country, right or wrong,’ Stephen Decatur said. That is faith. It seems all we writers who have no faith have been led back to one by your nightmare. The irony is that we have had it all along. We believe in freedom of expression as an absolute. How dangerous to use the word absolute, but you have pulled it forth from us—your health!” See 89.2–89.4, 89.8, 93.9.