Shame: A Novel

Not since Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses has the publication of a book provoked such mob violence, public outcries for the arrest and death of the author, and international efforts to secure her safety.

The animosity and bloodletting between Muslim and Hindu extremists on the Indian subcontinent is centuries old. When the Barbri Mosque at Ayodhya, India, was destroyed by Hindu fundamentalists on December 6, 1992, fierce mob reprisals took place against the Hindu minority in Muslim Bangla…