"This country became the safe haven for every extremist group in the world. It was idiocy - idiocy," he said.

On the fatwa issued against him by Ayatollah Khomeini for the 'Satanic Verses' on February 14, 1989, he said he realises the it was merely the ‘prologue’ in a very long novel that is becoming ever more terrifying.

"On September 11, 2001, one of his three favourite cities, New York, was attacked, four years later his adopted home of London was targeted by suicide bombers and last year, Mumbai, the city of his birth, was overwhelmed by extremists intent on causing havoc," the report noted.

The West should, Rushdie felt, have realised that the fatwa was just the beginning of a new era. "There was a tendency from everybody to believe that it was an isolated incident rather than an indicator or something wider, to believe that it was all my fault."

Rushdie, who is now portrayed as a party animal and a favourite for the paparazzi because he often has a beautiful woman on his arm, said after four failed marriages, he has no intention of tying the knot again.

"I'm not saying I am never going to fall in love again but there is no need to marry." Nor does he want any more children. "I'm 61, enough already," Rushdie said.