Salman Rushdie Recounts 2022 Stabbing Horror: “Why Didn’t I Fight?

Tehran has denied any link with the attacker. The Indian-born author, a naturalized American based in New York, has faced death threats since his 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses” was declared blasphemous by Iran’s supreme leader. This made Rushdie a global symbol of free speech.

Despite years remaining unscathed, a knife-wielding assailant jumped on stage at an arts gathering in rural New York state and stabbed Rushdie multiple times in the neck and abdomen, resulting in the loss of his right eye. Tehran denied any link with the attacker and blamed only Rushdie, who is now 76 years old, for the incident. The suspect, then 24, pleaded not guilty to attempted murder.

The story of how Salman’s would-be assassins finally caught up with him has been awaited. Rushdie, known as a master storyteller, has held this narrative close until now. In an interview with CBS program “60 Minutes” ahead of the release of “Knife,” Rushdie recounted dreaming two days before the attack of being stabbed in an amphitheater.

He also mentioned his initial consideration of not attending the event but dismissed it as a dream. Rushdie had been invited to talk about protecting writers whose lives have been threatened – an ironic situation not lost on him. In the book, Rushdie reveals that he has experienced nightmares in the wake of the attack.

“The Satanic Verses” brought him far greater, mostly unwelcome, attention. As an atheist whose parents were non-practicing Muslims, Rushdie was forced to go underground and was granted police protection in Britain following the murder or attempted murder of his translators and publishers. He only began to emerge from his life on the run in the late 1990s after Iran said it would not support his assassination and eventually became a fixture on the international party circuit.

Since the attack, Rushdie has released a novel, “Victory City” (2023), and revisited the Chautauqua Institution, where the near-fatal event occurred, finding the trip cathartic. The author has been married five times and has two children.