Salman Rushdie reflects on near-fatal stabbing two years later in new book ‘Knife’

Renowned author Salman Rushdie on Sunday reflected on decades of death threats that have haunted him in his new book, The Knife, in his first interview since a near-fatal stabbing in 2022. .

Rushdie, who was targeted in 1989 after Khomeini issued a fatwa against him for his depiction of the Prophet Muhammad in “The Satanic Verses,” almost succeeded in a final attempt on his life. I remembered that night in August 2022.

He was giving a presentation in Chautauqua, New York, about writers who are at risk of violence for their work.

“Out of the corner of my right eye, the last thing I saw with my right eye, I saw a man dressed in black running toward me from the right side of the seating area,” he said. -Told Cooper on “60 Minutes.” interview. “Black clothes, black mask. He came hard and low. Squat missile.”

“I confess that I have sometimes imagined my assassin standing up in a public place and coming at me in exactly this way,” he continued. “So when I saw this ferocious figure charging towards me, my first thought was, ‘That’s you.'” Yes, please. ‘”

After nearly a decade of being on 24-hour security guard against Iranian-backed assassins in the 1990s, Rushdie thought he would never be killed.

“I felt like something was coming out of the distant past and trying to drag me into that distant past to kill me, if you like,” Rushdie said. “And when he came up to me. He basically hit me here so hard, and at first I thought he had been hit.”

Rushdie was attacked 15 times in 27 seconds, stabbing and slashing him in the face, neck and chest. He lost vision in his right eye.

“I remember thinking I was probably going to die,” he said. “And it was interesting because it was so true, it wasn’t like I was afraid of it or anything. And yes, there was nothing. There’s no heavenly choir. Pearl. There is no gate like that.

“I mean, I’m not a supernatural person, you know? I believe that death comes as the end. Nothing has happened to change my mind about that,” he said. continued. “I have received no revelation, except that I have no revelation to receive.”

Rushdie barely survived, but was taken by helicopter to a hospital in Erie, Pennsylvania, where he was finally released more than a month later.

The attacker, a 24-year-old man, said he was inspired by the “Satanic Verses” about the Prophet Muhammad and claimed Rushdie was “attacking Islam.”

The Knife, which reflects on that experience, is his 22nd book, and not the one he originally wanted to write. He said he was tired of his name being known and the death threats that followed.

“It was very difficult for me that after ‘The Satanic Verses’ was published, all anyone knew about me was this death threat,” he said. “But it became clear that I couldn’t write anything else.”

“I need to focus on that clichéd elephant in the room, but the moment I thought about it, something changed in my head,” he continued. “And it became a book that I really wanted to write.”

Now, 20 months later, Rushdie has fully recovered from the attack and is now completely blind. He still lives in upstate New York.

“I don’t feel like I’ve changed much, but I feel like my shadow remains,” he said. “I think that shadow is just there. You know, some days are dark and some days are not.”