Christians Under Attack

launch on Tuesday. Titled Joseph Anton, it's a memoir of the nine years he spent in hiding after Iran's spiritual leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a death warrant against him in 1989, accusing Rushdie of blasphemy in his novel The Satanic Verses.

''The pope gets ridiculed every day, but you don't see Catholics organizing terrorist attacks around the world,'' the atheist author said. ''I don't like the word Islamophobia. We must distinguish between attacking ideas and attacking people.

The response to words must always be more words. People are using offense as an excuse for revenge. But there is no intrinsic right to not be offended, it's absurd.'' The title of his new book, a composite of the names of his two favorite authors, Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekhov, is the pseudonym he chose when he went into hiding, Rushdie explained.