Less than two months after a court ruled that Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses could be imported to India, the novel has hit bookstore shelves in the author’s home country.

Rushdie’s novel, published in 1988, remains one of the most controversial books of the last century. Some Muslims regard the book as Islamophobic, and, shortly after its publication, Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa that called for Rushdie, as well as his editors, publishers, and translators, to be killed. Rushdie was stabbed in 2022 before a lecture in New York state; his alleged attacker said that he considered Khomeini to be “a great person.”

India banned The Satanic Verses months after it was published, but last month, a New Delhi court found that the ban was invalid because authorities could not locate the customs notification that forbade its importation.

The Guardian reports that New Delhi’s Bahrisons Booksellers announced the return of the novel in a post on the social platform X, writing, “@SalmanRushdie’s The Satanic Verses is now in stock at Bahrisons Booksellers! This groundbreaking & provocative novel has captivated readers for decades with its imaginative storytelling and bold themes.” Replying to the post were several people asking if they could order the book from other parts of India.

Dilip Sharma, a college student, told the Guardian that he was curious about the novel, saying, “It feels unreal to see it in the bookstore because it’s like seeing the unicorn you’ve been hearing about all your life.”

Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.