Two weeks ago, I photographed a public reading of Salman Rushdie’s work by writers and friends of his. Perhaps the most appreciative response from the crowd gathered at the New York Public Library in support of Salman Rushdie on Friday came when the writer Hari Kunzru read aloud from Mr. Rushdie’s acclaimed, and infamous, novel “The Satanic Verses.” The book’s publication, in 1988, put a target on its author’s back and led to book bans, violent demonstrations and killings after Iran’s leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa calling for his death. It might have seemed daring, even provocative, to read openly from such a book, in such a setting, at such a time, just a week after Mr. Rushdie was attacked — stabbed multiple times by a man who rushed onto the stage at an arts festival in Western New York. But leaving it out might have seemed counter to Mr. Rushdie’s own uncompromising views on such things. The event, sponsored by the library, PEN America, the literary nonprofit group House of SpeakEasy and Penguin Random House, Mr. Rushdie’s publisher, featured a starry cast of writers, free-speech advocates and friends of the author, all reading excerpts from his work from the library’s grand front steps. The writers included Gay Talese, Kiran Desai, Roya Hakakian, Colum McCann, Amanda Foreman, A.M. Homes and many others; their remarks were sometimes calls to action, and sometimes highly personal. “I have been thinking about you every hour of every day for the past week,” Paul Auster said, addressing his remarks to the absent Mr. Rushdie. (PEN said that the author knew about the event and might perhaps be able to tune in, or watch the recording later, from his hospital bed.) “I love you as a brother and treasure the friendship we have built together over the past thirty years.” Words by Sarah Lyall for @nytimes.