Salman Rushdie before receiving his Outstanding Achievement award at the South Bank Sky Arts Awards on July 2, 2023.Photo:Jordan Pettitt/PA Images via Getty Images
Jordan Pettitt/PA Images via Getty Images
Salman Rushdie’s upcoming memoir will focus on the2022 stabbing attackthat resulted in blindness in the author’s right eye.
“This was a necessary book for me to write: a way to take charge of what happened, and to answer violence with art,” Rushdie said in a statement via Penguin Random House.
On Aug. 12, 2022, Rushdie was on stage at a literary festival at New York State’s Chautauqua Institution when a male assailant approached and attacked him with a knife. Rushdie was transported to a hospital in Pennsylvania and was later taken off a ventilator. In a statement at the time, the author’s son, Zafar Rushdie,said of his father:“Though his life changing injuries are severe, his usual feisty & defiant sense of humor remains intact.”
In an interview with Spanish-language newspaperEl Paislast year, Rushdie’s literary agent, Andrew Wylie, said in addition to the loss of sight in one eye and function in one of his hands,the author sustained 15 woundsin his chest and torso and three wounds to his neck following the “brutal attack.” Wylie also said that the assailant’s knife cut nerves in one of Rushdie’s arms.
The suspect in the attack, Hadi Matar, pleaded not guilty toattempted murder and assault.
Earlier this year, Random House published Rushdie’s novelVictory City, which had been finished prior to the incident, the AP reported. In a statement about Rushdie’s new memoir, Penguin Random House CEO Nihar Malaviya said: “Knifeis a searing book, and a reminder of the power of words to make sense of the unthinkable,” said in a statement. “We are honored to publish it, and amazed at Salman’s determination to tell his story, and to return to the work he loves.”
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Rushdie addressed the stabbing attack toThe New Yorkerin an interview published in February of this year. “Well, you know, I’ve been better,” he said of his spirits. “But, considering what happened, I’m not so bad. As you can see, the big injuries are healed, essentially. I have feeling in my thumb and index finger and in the bottom half of the palm. I’m doing a lot of hand therapy, and I’m told that I’m doing very well.”
In the same interview, Rushdie expressed thanks, including to his wife and children as well as his doctors following the attack. “I’m lucky,” he said. “What I really want to say is that my main overwhelming feeling is gratitude."
source: people.com
