Author Salman Rushdie, seen June 22 in Aspen, Colo., says he is no longer worried about his personal safety under the fatwa imposed nearly 20 years ago. (Ed Kosmicki/Associated Press)

Author Salman Rushdie told the British Broadcasting Corporation's nightly current affairs program on Monday that he may write a book about his life under the fatwa imposed on him almost 20 years ago.

The Indian-born writer was forced into hiding when Iran's then revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued the decree calling for his death in 1989.

Khomeini imposed the fatwa for Rushdie's alleged blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad in his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses.

Only Khomeini had the power to lift the decree, but he died that same year without doing so.

After nearly a decade in hiding, Rushdie began to appear in public more and more, and is now a fixture on the international literary circuit.

Although the death sentence still stands, when asked by the BBC program Newsnight about his current safety, the 61-year-old writer said it has "been all right for quite a long time."

The bad period, he said, lasted about nine years. "At the time, it was a struggle to try and get through it and somehow beyond it. But it's been nine years since then, so it does feel like an earlier chapter."

Rushdie said he did not think he will have to go into hiding again. He cited a German play based on The Satanic Verses that was staged in the past year without generating protests.

But when his knighthood was announced last year, it sparked condemnation from some Muslim countries and organizations, and threats against Britain from al-Qaeda.

Rushdie spoke of the importance of the internet in narrowing the gap between cultures by showing people what life is like elsewhere. "It may well be that what we think of as trivial and banal stuff like YouTube and MySpace will change the world," he said. "When people in repressive countries see that, it makes them want it."

Earlier this month, Rushdie's 1981 Midnight's Children won the Best of the Booker Prize, beating five other former Booker winners short listed from the prize's 40-year-history.

With files from the British Broadcasting Corporation