Writer Salman Rushdie will publish a memoir next year about the 2022 stabbing attack that left him seriously injured. This was reported by Rushdie’s American publisher, Penguin Random House.
The book, titled Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, will be published on April 16, 2024, according to Penguin Random House (PRH). “This was a necessary book for me to write: a way to come to grips with what happened and to respond to violence with art,” Rushdie said in a statement.
The Indian-born writer was attacked on August 12 last year when he wanted to give a talk at an event in upstate New York. He was seriously injured by stab wounds in his face, neck and abdomen and was on a ventilator for two days. Rushdie became blind in his right eye and can no longer use one of his hands.
Rushdie went into hiding for years after Iran called on Muslims worldwide to kill him for blasphemy in 1989, following the book The Satanic Verses. Many conservative Muslims view the satirical work about the Prophet Mohammed as sacrilege. In 1989 the writer also survived a failed bomb attack.
Rushdie has been committed to freedom of expression for decades, based on his own experiences. “In my lifetime, freedom of expression and freedom to publish have never been so threatened in the West,” Rushdie said. Earlier this year, his publishing company filed a lawsuit in Florida against the banning of books about race and LGBTI topics in schools. According to Rushdie, this lawsuit is ‘hugely important’.
The writer also published a novel almost six months after the stabbing attack, Victory City. That book had been in the making for some time and is not about the stabbing attack.
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