Rushdie weds again

Novelist Salman Rushdie married in America, in a ceremony attended by guests sworn to secrecy. The name of the bride, said to be a British-born publishing editor, was not revealed.

"The lady has gone through hell to stand beside Salman,'' the New York Post said, quoting sources who requested anonymity.

The tabloid Daily Mail in London said the twice-divorced Rushdie, 50, married his girlfriend of three years on Thursday and they are now on their honeymoon somewhere in the United States.

The paper, which quoted an unidentified "publishing associate,'' did not identify the woman or the exact location of the ceremony.

Guests, including Bill Buford, literary editor of the New Yorker, were sworn to secrecy and none of the prominent caterers on Long Island's East End would admit to handling the affair.

The author with a $ 2.5 million price on his head has been spending summers in the Hamptons, renting a house in the exclusive seaside area favoured by celebrities. His permanent home is in Britain.

Local officials had no knowledge of the wedding, and no confirmation of the reports could be obtained in London. Rushdie's agent did not return calls, and there was no reply from the offices of his lawyer or a committee of sympathisers.

Rushdie has an 18-year-old son by his first wife, Clarissa Luard, whom he married in 1976 and divorced in 1987. A year later, he married an American author, Marianne Wiggins, who was with him when Iran handed down the death sentence for writing the Satanic Verses. They were divorced in 1993.