LONDON (AP) --
Salman Rushdie was honored by fellow authors with the prestigious London International Writers Award, given for contributions to literature worldwide.
He was chosen by peers such as Norman Mailer, Germaine Greer and Martin Amis, who presented him with the prize on Wednesday.
I'm very pleased. The judgment of one's peers is always the best thing by far," said Rushdie, who was given a first edition of Charles Dickens' The Pickwick Papers." Rushdie's books include the novels Shame," Fury" and Midnight's Children," winner of the Booker Prize.
Past winners of the London award include Mailer, Margaret Atwood and J.G. Ballard.
Peter Florence, director of the Orange Word festival, which sets up speaking engagements for authors in London each fall, congratulated Rushdie, a native of India who became a longtime resident of England.
It is wonderful to celebrate Rushdie the writer, when so often we only hear about Rushdie the issue," said Florence.
Iran's late revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa -- or Islamic edict -- against Rushdie on Feb. 14, 1989. Khomeini ordered Muslims to kill the Indian-born author because Rushdie had allegedly insulted Islam in his best-selling novel, The Satanic Verses."
Khomeini's fatwa sent Rushdie into hiding under British police protection for years.
In 1998, the Iranian government declared it would not support the fatwa, but at the same time said it could not rescind the edict since, under Islamic law, that could be done only the person who issued it. Khomeini died June 3, 1989.
