Editorial [CounterText, 7(2)]

Abstract

The CounterText Interview carried in this issue can, without risking overstatement, be said to be historic – and for two reasons. First, the interviewee himself, Salman Rushdie, is prominent among contemporary writers in terms of the combination of critical acclaim, commercial success, and global cultural influence that his work has achieved. If CounterText is interested in where literature is going, Rushdie’s career as a writer, perhaps more than anybody else’s, embodies where literature has most recently been – his perspective on the literary is unique. Second, Rushdie, a New York resident, was interviewed in November 2020 at a moment when the future of the United States seemed to be hanging in the balance. The Presidential election of the previous week appeared to be going in favour of Joe Biden, and in an apparent act of desperation President Donald Trump encouraged his supporters to march on the Capitol. It was also at this time that the dire consequences of Trump’s mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic were being felt with shocking force. This CounterText Interview, therefore, finds one of the world’s great writers, at a momentous time, taking the pulse of literature and of the cultural and political realities of the United States, and of much else besides.