Salman Rushdie attack renews netizens interest in book | Chennai News

CHENNAI: The attack on author Salman Rushdie in New York on Friday has led to renewed interest among India’s netizens on the author’s controversial work Satanic Verses almost three decades after its launch. Even though the book is banned for sale in India, search traffic relating to the book and the author has spiked on search giant Google.
The traffic for the term “Satanic Verses PDF” spiked starting late at night on Friday and continued to trend strongly on Saturday and Sunday. A regional analysis of the interest showed that the highest search traffic came from West Bengal, followed by Bihar, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra in this order.

The award-winning author’s name also trended on India’s world wide web, and was the second most-searched term on Google in India on Friday, with over one million searches clocked.
Indians’ interest to know more about the book was evident on the internet. The traffic for the term “Satanic Verses” reached a peak at around 11:30 pm on Friday night and remained high over Saturday, tapering on Sunday. The highest search interest for the book’s title came from Mizoram, Nagaland, Delhi, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur, in this order, an analysis of regional trends showed.

The book is not listed on online book stores in India as it was banned in the market. But second-hand books online store Bookchor.com told TOI that search traffic on the book Satanic Verses have shot up, and the orders of other books by the author are up by almost 25% from the period prior to the incident. “While we do not sell that book [Satanic Verses] as per law, there’s always been demand for that book amongst the readers. Since the incident, the queries for his books have increased even more,” a spokesperson said.
Globally, the sales of the controversial book have skyrocketed. On Sunday afternoon, a look through the bestsellers list on Amazon’s international (US) website (which is updated hourly based on sales) showed that ‘The Satanic Verses’ was at the number 1 spot in the category of contemporary literature and fiction , and number 11 on the overall book bestsellers list. Amazon India and Flipkart did not respond to TOI’s queries.