Boyle, Rushdie in school papers

T.C. Boyle offers his opinion of the National Book Award to his school’s paper, the Daily Trojan:

“It’s like the Oscars” Boyle said, “There are five finalists in fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and children’s lit. And we all go in tuxedos or gowns and they pull the winner out of a hat.”

In the rest of the article he describes what it’s like to be a big time author, then puts it in perspective by saying he lives in a city of full of celebrities. Poor, poor guy. Elsewhere, the Cornell Daily Sun has a review of Salman Rushdie’s visit to the campus. Here’s an excerpt:

“What can you do if you find yourself stuck in the middle of an historical event like that?” Rushdie rhetorically asked reporters at yesterday’s press conference. “I think that [the fatwa] is noisier than most literary careers so of course it got the part of ‘what people know about me as a writer.’ My interest as a writer now is to get past it so that people stop thinking of me in that box. I think, in a way, that it was the greatest damage done to me as a writer; that people categorized me in some box called Islamic fanaticism, which really, is not what my work is like or about. Very few people mention, for instance, that The Satanic Verses is quite a funny book. It’s not discussed in those terms.”

Read the rest of Rushdie Makes Rare Appearance at I.C.