DAYTON, Ohio (AP) — Salman Rushdie was among the honorees Sunday at the Dayton Literary Peace Prize event in Ohio, receiving a lifetime achievement award after publishing his first work of fiction since being stabbed on a New York lecture stage three years ago.
The prizes honor both literary merit and the writers’ promotion of peace through their work, with separate awards annually for fiction, nonfiction and lifetime achievement. The Ohio city was the site of negotiations that led to the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995, ending a war in the Balkans marked by ethnic cleansing that killed more than 300,000 people, as well as the displacement of 1 million residents.
The 78-year-old Rushdie is best known for his 1988 novel, “The Satanic Verses,” which includes a dream sequence about the Prophet Muhammad that prompted allegations of blasphemy and a 1989 call from Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini for the Indian-born writer’s death, driving him into hiding. He was blinded in one eye from the 2022 attack before a stunned audience, and his assailant — who wasn’t born when “The Satanic Verses” was published — was sentenced to 25 years in prison…