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Unfortunately, most people have heard about Salman Rushdie because of the Iranian fatwa issued against him in 1989 after he published "The Satanic Verses," not because they have read his books.

The threat against his life, however, has not stopped Rushdie from writing. He became increasingly at ease at appearing in public after a few years of living in seclusion. Rushdie even made a cameo appearance, as himself, in the 2001 film "Bridget Jones's Diary."

"I'm fine, thanks. Have been for years," he wrote in a reply to questions submitted to him via e-mail by the Tribune-Review earlier this week.

Rushdie's new book, "Shalimar the Clown," was published Tuesday. Rushdie will speak as a guest of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, at the Byham Theater.

What follows are Rushdie's answer's to the Tribune-Review's questions:

Question: You dedicate the book to the memory of your Kashmiri grandparents. Did you want to tell the story of Kashmir, to maybe shed some light on the political situation, especially for those of us in the West who are unfamiliar with the region and the troubles it has experienced? If so, what should we know about the region, and why is it important globally?

Answer: I have cared about Kashmir all my life because of family ties and a lifetime of going there and loving it. And yes, I wanted to tell its story, the story of a paradise not so much lost as smashed up, and I think Western readers will find many resonances with events in other, perhaps more familiar parts of the world, other places in which armies and fanaticisms have marched over people's lives. But above all I wanted to write about beauty, and the tragedy of its loss.

Q: The stories of Max, Boonyi, India and Shalimar are wonderfully interwoven. The book could have been titled after any of them. But you chose Shalimar, the book's most contentious character. Why him, and what does he symbolize to you?

A: I'm interested in characters whose lives lead them to change dramatically, and Shalimar the Clown undergoes the biggest metamorphosis of anyone in the book. That's why he's in the title. It's a book about metamorphosis.

Q: On page 180, you write: For the rest of his life Max Ophuls would remember that instant during which the shape of the conflict in Kashmir had seemed too great and alien for his western mind to understand, and the sense of the urgent need with which he had drawn his own experience around him, like a shawl. Had he been trying to understand, or to blind himself, to his failure to do so? Were you trying to explain the consequences of Western involvement in this region of the world? If so, is the West culpable at all for the tensions in the region?

A: I was trying to show how all the world's stories are now one big story, and how, to explain a murder in California, you have to understand events on the far side of the world. As far as culpability: Well, the U.S. and Russia have both vetoed all attempts to discuss the Kashmir issue at the U.N. And, as is now well known, during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan the West armed and supported those groups from which the Taliban were born.

Q: There are so many ways to read the book -- as a love story, as a cautionary tale, as a morality play. What was the origin of the story, and what does it mean to you?

A: The story was born when I met a group of traveling players like the ones in the story on a visit to Kashmir some years ago. But what made it come to life was when I understood that at its heart was a tale of betrayed love.

Q: Were you at all trying to draw comparisons between the story of "Shalimar" and recent events -- 9/11, the war in Iraq -- and the situation in Kashmir? If so, what are the connections?

A: I will leave it to the reader, I think, to draw parallels and hear resonances.

Q: Reading "Shalimar the Clown" was an emotional experience, with so much sadness and tragedy in the narrative. Was there a similar effect on you as the writer? If so, how did you cope writing so many tragic scenes?

A: Yes, it was a very emotional experience writing it. There were scenes that made me cry as I wrote them, which made me feel a bit foolish -- after all, I was making them up.

Q: It seems the news of the fatwa against you has faded away, that you're traveling and in public more. What is the situation? Do you feel safe, or do you still require security?

A: I'm fine, thanks. Have been for years.

Q: In a recent wire story, you were quoted as saying that President Bush is responsible for much of the radicalism in the Islamic world. Didn't this radicalism exist -- in Palestine and Israel, in Syria, in Morocco, in Kashmir -- before the U.S. invaded Iraq? Wasn't 9/11 an indication that radicalism has been present for a long time?

A: I think what I said must have been oversimplified in reports. What I intended to say was that the insurgency in Iraq has been a breeding ground and training ground for jihadists from all over the world, and a kind of jihadist international is being nurtured there.

Capsule review

"Shalimar the Clown," Salman Rushdie's ninth novel, is a richly detailed, intricate, exhilarating and only occasionally exasperating novel that requires a reader to have faith: Faith in the author's ability to tie together seemingly disconnected characters in Los Angeles and Kashmir. Faith that the elaborately designed histories of the characters will have payoffs.

The story starts simply -- Maximillian Ophuls, an almost mythical figure of American and global importance, is killed by his driver, Shalimar. His daughter, India, and a mysterious woman in Kashmir also are introduced, and at times the pace of the novel is slowed by a sumptuous banquet of details and descriptions that are almost too rich to digest.

That is also, however, the charm of Rushdie's writing: Every detail is perfectly placed, each word precisely fitted, each paragraph a feat of balanced construction. The political undertones of the plot are subtle and unobtrusive, in service to the story itself. The characters are honed and buffed until they seem to breathe, sweat and bleed from the pages.

But best are Rushdie's evocations of Kashmir and the people in the rival and neighboring villages of Pachigam and Shirmal. If Rushdie's rendition of this troubled but beautiful part of the world was the crux of "Shalimar the Clown," it would be a book worth reading. Because the novel is so much more, it stands as an important work that entertains and illuminates.

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