Joseph Anton

On February 14, 1989, Valentine's Day, Salman Rushdie received a call from a BBC reporter informing him that Ayatollah Khomeini had sentenced him to death. That was when the writer first heard the word "fatwa." He was accused of having his novel "The Satanic Verses" directed "against Islam, the Prophet, and the Quran." Thus begins the incredible story of how the writer was forced to hide, moving from house to house, constantly under police protection. He was asked to come up with a pseudonym, a new name that he could be called by the police. He thought of his favorite writers and chose the names Conrad and Chekhov. And Joseph Anton was born.