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"I do not want to live in hiding," he told AFP during a visit to Paris.
The novelist's life changed forever on February 14, 1989, when the Iranian spiritual leader ordered Rushdie's execution after calling his novel "The Satanic Verses" as blasphemous.
Like a kind of overthrown valentine, Tehran renewed the fatwa year after year.
Rushdie, who is according to some of the greatest writer that India has produced since Tagore, has spent 13 years under a false name and under constant police protection.
"I was 41 years old at the time, now I'm 71. Everything is fine now," he said in September.
"We live in a world where the subject changes very quickly, and it is a very old subject.There are now many other things that must be scary – and of other people to kill, "he added regretfully.
Rushdie ceased to use an alleged pseudonym in the months following September 11, 2001, three years after Tehran had declared that the threat against him was "over."
But plainclothes policemen nonetheless sat at the door of his French publisher's office in Paris during an interview with AFP. Several others had taken positions in the courtyard.
Earlier, at a book festival in eastern France, a skeptical audience told a skeptical audience that he was leading a "normal life" in New York, where he had been living for two decades.
"I take the subway," he says.
"The Satanic Verses" was Rushdie's fifth book, he has now written the 18th. Entitled "The Golden House", it is about a Mumbai man who, like the author, reinvents himself in the Big Apple to try to get rid of his past. .
The dark years of riots, bomb plots and the badbadination of one of the translators of the book, as well as shot and stabbed shots of two other people "feel like there is very long, "he said.
"Islam was not a thing, no one thought so," he said of the period when "The Satanic Verses" was written.
"What has happened is that Westerners are more informed than before," he added.
Still, the book was very misunderstood, he insisted: "Really, it's a novel about South Asian immigrants to London."
Rushdie 's friend, British Pakistani writer Hanif Kureishi, believes that no one "would afford today to write" The Satanic Verses ", and again unless you publish it. "
But even Kureishi, author of the bestselling novel The Black Album, on British radical Muslim youth, admits that he has never seen controversy occur in reading a book. copy of test.
He meditated, "I did not notice anything that could awaken the fundamentalists, I saw it as a book about psychosis, about novelty and change."
Yet his fury was a milestone in the rise of political Islam.
Indian author and journalist Salil Tripathi of International PEN, who advocates for respect for writers' rights, said he hoped the leading publishers would remain brave enough to publish "The Satanic Verses."
"I have not totally lost hope, but the Rushdie affair has undeniably been a mental drag, and many subjects are now considered taboo," he conceded.
"In India, with Hindu nationalism, people are very reluctant to say things about Hindu gods and goddesses because you do not know what could happen to you." The threat from the crowd has grown phenomenally. , added Tripathi.
Today, intimidation is exercised by foot soldiers rather than by governments, he said, suggesting that all religious clerics must do to awaken the angry mbades, c & rsquo; Is to express their dislike for a publication.
He warned, "This is a frightening reality for writers, there is intolerance to competition -" If Muslims can ban cartoons in Denmark, why can not we ban this Christian or Hindu writer? in Pakistan? to say this or that? & # 39; "
Sean Gallagher, of the London-based Index on Censorship, said that the world had not moved much since the Rushdie affair.
"The problems we are dealing with now are the same.The debate on the blasphemy laws is part of a much needed cyclical conversation.It is important that we continue to be vigilant in regards to freedom of expression and that these cultural dialogues, "he explained. .
Rushdie himself is also philosophical. When asked if he should have written the book, he replied: "I take the position of Edith Piaf: I do not regret anything", citing the famous hymn of the deceased beaten by the French singer.
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