British-American writer Salman Rushdie recounts the 2022 stabbing at a public occasion that left him blind in a single eye in “Knife”, his first memoir because the near-fatal assault, which hits English language bookstores on Tuesday. The French version, “Le Couteau”, might be launched Thursday.
The Indian-born writer, a naturalised US citizen based mostly in New York, has confronted dying threats since his 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses” was declared blasphemous by Iran‘s supreme chief, making Salman Rushdie a world image of free speech.
However after years remaining unscathed, a knife-wielding assailant jumped on stage at an arts gathering in rural New York state and stabbed Rushdie a number of occasions within the neck and stomach. He finally misplaced his proper eye.
“At 1 / 4 to eleven on August 12, 2022, on a sunny Friday morning in upstate New York, I used to be attacked and virtually killed by a younger man with a knife simply after I got here out on stage on the amphitheater in Chautauqua to speak concerning the significance of protecting writers protected from hurt,” Rushdie writes within the opening paragraph of the memoir “Knife”, printed Tuesday.
At simply over 200 pages, “Knife” is a short work within the canon of Rushdie, among the many most exuberant and expansive of latest novelists.
“Knife” can also be his first memoir since “Joseph Anton”, the 2012 publication through which he seemed again on the fatwa, or dying decree, issued greater than 20 years earlier by Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini following the publication of “The Satanic Verses”.
Iran denied any hyperlink with the knife attacker in New York state, however mentioned Rushdie, now 76, was responsible for the incident. The suspect, then 24, has pleaded not responsible to tried homicide.
In an interview with the New York Submit, the alleged attacker, who was born within the US and whose dad and mom had emigrated from Lebanon, mentioned he had solely learn two pages of “The Satanic Verses” however believed Rushdie had “attacked Islam“.
‘Murderous ghost from the previous’
As Rushdie observes in “Knife”, subtitled “Meditations After an Tried Homicide”, he had generally pictured his “public murderer” turning up.
The timing of the 2022 assault appeared not simply startling, however “anachronistic”, the rising of a “murderous ghost from the previous”, returning to settle a rating Rushdie thought lengthy resolved. He refers to August 11, 2022, as his “final harmless night”.
In some ways, “Knife” is as notable for the spirit it shares with Rushdie’s different books as it’s for the blunt and horrifying descriptions of the assault that did, and didn’t, change his life.
Within the guide’s first chapter, Rushdie praises the “pure heroism”, the bodily braveness of the Chautauqua Establishment occasion moderator Henry Reese, who grabbed the assailant.
But when one other type of heroism is hope and willpower (and humour) within the wake of trauma, then “Knife” is a heroic guide, documenting Rushdie’s journey from mendacity in his personal blood to a return to the identical stage 13 months later and attaining a state of “wounded happiness”.
The long-awaited new memoir reveals Ruhdie’s undaunted spirit and dedication to free speech, based on reviewers.
Suzanne Nossel, chief government of free speech advocacy group PEN America, mentioned that “since that dreadful day … now we have awaited the story of how Salman’s would-be assassins lastly caught up with him”.
“A grasp storyteller, Salman has held this narrative shut till now, leaving us to marvel from a distance at his braveness and resilience,” she mentioned.
In an interview with CBS programme “60 Minutes” forward of the discharge of “Knife”, Rushdie recounted that he had dreamed two days earlier than the assault of being stabbed in an amphitheater – and regarded not attending the occasion.
“After which I believed, ‘Do not be foolish. It is a dream,'” he mentioned.
He additionally writes in “Knife” that he was because of be paid “generously” for the occasion – cash he deliberate to make use of for residence repairs.
Rushdie had been invited to speak about defending writers whose lives have been threatened – an irony not misplaced on him.
“It simply turned out to not be a protected house for me,” he instructed the interviewer.
Within the guide, Rushdie says he has skilled nightmares within the wake of the assault, based on The Guardian.
From Mumbai to New York by way of London
Rushdie, who was born in Mumbai however moved to England as a boy, was propelled into the highlight together with his second novel “Midnight’s Youngsters” (1981), which gained Britain’s prestigious Booker Prize for its portrayal of post-independence India.
However “The Satanic Verses” introduced him far better, largely unwelcome, consideration.
The atheist writer, whose dad and mom have been non-practicing Muslims, was compelled to go underground.
He was granted police safety in Britain and moved repeatedly whereas in hiding. The Japanese translator of “The Satanic Verses” was murdered, and its Italian translator and Norwegian writer have been attacked.
Rushdie solely started to emerge from his life on the run within the late Nineteen Nineties after Iran mentioned it could not assist his assassination.
He turned a fixture on the worldwide celebration circuit, even showing in movies comparable to “Bridget Jones’s Diary” and US tv sitcom “Seinfeld”.
The writer has been married 5 occasions and has two kids.
Because the 2022 knife assault, he additionally launched a novel, “Victory Metropolis” (2023).
He has additionally revisited the Chautauqua Establishment, the place the near-fatal stabbing occurred, writing in “Knife” that the journey was cathartic.
“As we stood there within the stillness, I spotted {that a} burden had lifted from me by some means, and one of the best phrase I may discover for what I used to be feeling was lightness,” Rushdie wrote.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP and AP)
