The author withdrew from the Jaipur Literature Festival in January after Islamic hardliners threatened to disrupt the gathering and police told him assassins from the Mumbai underworld were plotting to kill him. The 64-year-old writer, who was born in Mumbai, spent a decade in hiding after Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa in 1989 calling for his death over "The Satanic Verses". According to the conference website, Rushdie's one-hour appearance on Friday will be titled "The Liberty Verses I am What I am and That's All That I am". "I can confirm Rushdie will be attending in person," an event official told AFP on Tuesday, declining to give her name. After Rushdie was forced to abandon his trip to Jaipur, he vented his fury against Muslim activists and the Indian politicians who had failed to stand up to them. "I will come to India many times, as I choose, to do what I will, and I will not allow these religious gangsters and their cronies in the government to prevent me," he said in a television interview from London.