Salman Rushdie recounts near-fatal stabbing in 2022 in new memoir 'Knife'

Knife a memoir by Salman Rushdie released on Tuesday recounts the nearfatal stabbing at a public event in 2022 that left him blind in one eye and his journey to healingThe Indianborn author a British and naturalised American based in New York has faced death threats since his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses was declared blasphemous by Irans supreme leader making Rushdie a global symbol of free speechAfter going unscathed for years a knifewielding assailant jumped on stage at an arts gathering in rural New York state and stabbed Rushdie multiple times in the neck and abdomen He ultimately lost his right eyeWhy didnt I fight Why didnt I run I just stood there like a pinata and let him smash me Rushdie writesIt didnt feel dramatic or particularly awful It just felt probable matteroffactTehran denied any link with the attacker but said only Rushdie now 76 years old was to blame for the incident The suspect then 24 has pleaded not guilty to attempted murderIn an interview with the New York Post the alleged attacker whose parents emigrated to the United States from Lebanon said he had only read two pages of The Satanic Verses but believed Rushdie had attacked IslamIn Knife Rushdie refers to him simply as The AMy Assailant my wouldbe Assassin the Asinine man who made Assumptions about me I have found myself thinking of him perhaps forgivably as an Ass he writesRushdie said in Knife the attack has not changed his view on his most famous workI am proud of the work Ive done and that very much includes The Satanic Verses If anyones looking for remorse you can stop reading right here he writesIts a dreamRushdie says that two days before the attack he had a dream of being attacked by a gladiator with a spear in a Roman amphitheater and didnt want to attend the talkAnd then I thought Dont be silly Its a dream he told CBS in a recent interviewHe was also paid generously for the event he says and needed the money for home repairsRushdie had been invited to talk about protecting writers whose lives have been threatened an irony not lost on himIt just turned out not to be a safe space for me he told CBSIn the book Rushdie says he has experienced nightmares in the wake of the attackSuzanne Nossel of free speech advocacy group PEN America said they were eager to hear the full storyA master storyteller Salman has held this narrative close until now leaving us to marvel from a distance at his courage and resilience she saidLightnessRushdie who was born in Mumbai but moved to England as a boy was propelled into the spotlight with his second novel Midnights Children 1981 which won Britains prestigious Booker Prize for its portrayal of postindependence IndiaBut The Satanic Verses brought him far greater mostly unwelcome attentionThe atheist author whose parents were nonpractising Muslims was forced to go undergroundHe was granted police protection in Britain following the murder or attempted murder of his translators and publishers and moved repeatedly while in hidingRushdie only began to emerge from his life on the run in the late 1990s after Iran said it would not support his assassinationHe became a fixture on the international party circuit even appearing in films such as Bridget Joness Diary and US television sitcom SeinfeldThe author has been married five times and has two childrenHis 21st novel Victory City was completed just before the attack and released in 2023He has revisited the Chautauqua Institution where the nearfatal event was held writing in the book that the trip was catharticAs we stood there in the stillness I realized that a burden had lifted from me somehow and the best word I could find for what I was feeling was lightness he writes