Rushdie Still in Hiding but Appears to Be Coping Well

Novelist Salman Rushdie has been in hiding for 10 days under a death sentence from the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran, but a British newspaper editor who spoke to him Thursday said he seems to be coping well.

And he has fulfilled at least one literary commitment: a review for the Observer of fellow novelist Philip Roth’s autobiography.

In the review for the weekly newspaper, Rushdie is said to hint at a feeling of kinship with the American Jewish author, whose portrayals of his fellow Jews got him into trouble.

Roth was attacked in the 1960s for his irreverent, painfully personal descriptions of Jewish life, especially in his novel “Portnoy’s Complaint.”

Rushdie, born a Muslim in India, has been deemed by Khomeini to be a blasphemer for what he wrote in his novel, “The Satanic Verses,” about the Prophet Mohammed and the Koran, the Muslim holy book.

The book Rushdie reviewed is “The Facts,” an autobiography in which Roth responds to his critics.

“Mr. Rushdie says this has helped him during his own predicament when he has been similarly beleaguered,” said Blake Morrison, literary editor of the Observer. “By quoting Roth, he gives some indication of his own feelings.”

But where Roth’s fiction stirred debate primarily at the intellectual level, Rushdie’s work has put his life in danger.

Iran’s spiritual leader issued the death call Feb. 14, and Iranian clerics offered a $5.2-million bounty for the assassination. Most experts on Iran have advised the writer to take the threat seriously, and Rushdie has said he does.

Rushdie and his American wife, novelist Marianne Wiggins, are at an undisclosed location, and both have canceled U.S. promotional tours--Rushdie to publicize “The Satanic Verses” and Wiggins to publicize her latest novel, the critically acclaimed “John Dollar.”

In other developments:

An Iranian Foreign Ministry statement accused the West of planning “to unleash a new wave of terrorism” and blame it on Khomeini’s decree ordering Rushdie’s death, the official news agency IRNA said.

-- Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine, which holds Americans Alann Steen, Robert Polhill and Jesse Turner hostage in Beirut, released a statement threatening to avenge the action by Rushdie, the book’s publishers and their supporters. The group released a photograph of the three but did not make specific threats.

-- The Islamic Society of North America, which says it is the largest national organization of the estimated 6 million Muslims who reside in the United States and Canada, called on publishers and booksellers to “refuse to broker hate against Islam and Muslims--or any other religion or people.”