The award-winning author and freedom of expression advocate Salman Rushdie is giving away the book “Knife” today.
In the book, Rushdie writes for the first time, in detail, about the events of August 12, 2022, when he was attempted to be killed during a stage call in the state of New York. The attack occurred more than 30 years after the fatwa issued against him in the wake of the novel The Satanic Verses (1988).
Salman Rushdie
Expand/minimize fact box
- Salman Rushdie is a British award-winning author of Indian origin who lives in New York.
- Rushdie is best known for the controversy surrounding his novel The Satanic Verses from 1988, which many Muslims perceived as blasphemous and offensive. The book is banned in India and in several Muslim countries.
- The turmoil surrounding the book escalated when Iran’s then-leader Ayatollah Khomeini sentenced Rushdie and all publishers of the book to death.
- In 1991, the book’s Japanese translator, Hitoshi Igarashi, and Italian translator, Ettore Capriolo, were assassinated. In 1993 there was also an assassination attempt against Rushdie’s Norwegian publisher William Nygaard. Igarashi was killed, while Capriolo and Nygaard survived.
- Rushdie has lived with police protection for a number of years, and for a long time went under the pseudonym Joseph Anton. In 1998, the Iranian government declared that it no longer sought the execution of the death sentence.
- Rushdie has published a number of novels after “The Satanic Verses”. However, his book “The Moor’s Last Sigh” from 1995 was also banned in India due to harassment of a prominent Hindu fundamentalist politician.
(Source: Great Norwegian Lexicon)
Want to “fight back”
– I remember thinking I was going to die. Fortunately, I was wrong, Rushdie adds BBC.
He says that the eye that was hit by the assailant’s knife hung down his face “like a soft-boiled egg”, and that its loss “upset him every day”.
This is one of many details Rushdie openly talks about in the book. The book is his way of processing the event and “hitting back” against what happened, he tells the BBC.
In an interview with the American program 60 minutes on CBS, Rushdie talks about the attacker.
– He and I had 27 seconds together. That was it, Rushdie adds the program.
According to the police, Rushdie was stabbed 12 times during the 27 seconds. Several places on his upper body, in his neck, in his hand and perhaps worst of all: in his right eye, which he will never see again.
Salman Rushdie before the attack in 2022.
Photo: Rogelio V. Solis / AP
– No idea how he was going to kill
After 18 days in hospital and three weeks in rehabilitation, he was discharged. One of the surgeons told him that Rushdie had been both unlucky and lucky at the same time.
“What’s the lucky part,” Rushdie asked, to which the surgeon had replied: “The lucky part is that the person who attacked you had no idea how to kill someone with a knife.”
The attacker, a 24-year-old Muslim man from New Jersey, has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder. He is now awaiting the trial against him.
The perpetrator has said that he saw a video with Rushdie and does not like people who are “dishonest”.
Linked to attempted murder in Norway
Rushdie also tells the BBC that the fight for freedom of expression has become more difficult, largely because of the changed attitude he sees in many young people.
– The whole point of freedom of expression is that you have to allow expressions you don’t agree with.
Since the attack, Rushdie has made very few public appearances. Nor has he said anything in particular about what happened in the press.
Salman Rushdie also has branches in Norway. In 1993, publisher William Nygaard was shot and attempted to kill in Oslo.
The attempted murder was quickly linked to Nygaard’s role as an informer. While he was director of the publishing house Aschehoug, he was a supporter of Rushdie when he published the novel “The Satanic Verses”.
Iran’s spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a death sentence on the author and everyone involved in publishing the book. Nygaard then responded by speeding up the book publication.
In Norway, Aschehoug publishes the book. Today’s publisher Mads Nygaard (son of William Nygaard) tells NRK that they do not feel any fear with regard to publishing the book.
– We have published Rushdie ever since “Midnattsbarn” came out many years ago. He is one of our most important authors. Standing with him and fighting his case has been completely natural, says Mads Nygaard.
Photo: Morten Holm / NTB
Published 16.04.2024, at 09.19 Updated 16.04.2024, at 12.08