Salman Rushdie announces release of memoir 'Knife' recounting stabbing

Salman Rushdie, a British-American writer, will publish his memoir "Knife" on Tuesday. In it, he describes how he survived the terrifying experience of being stabbed during a public event in 2022.

After an attacker wielding a knife attacked Rushdie during an arts event in New York state, he was left blind in one eye.

Indian-born author who became a naturalised American citizen and lives in New York has received death threats ever since Iran's supreme leader deemed his 1988 book "The Satanic Verses" blasphemous, AFP reported.

During an interview with CBS's "60 Minutes" programme, which was made available to the public ahead of its Sunday airing, Rushdie described what one of the doctors who performed the life-saving surgery stated: "First you were really unlucky and then you were really lucky."

"I said, 'What's the lucky part?' and he said, 'Well, the lucky part is that the man who attacked you had no idea how to kill a man with a knife,'" Rushdie said in one excerpt.

He stated at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the largest publishing trade show in the world, in October 2023 that the knife attack "was a pretty harsh and sharp reminder" of the fatwa announced against him.

The attack, according to 76-year-old Rushdie, was "somewhat surprising" because "the temperature had cooled off."

"I'm just happy to still be here to say so. It was a close thing."

At the New York literary conference, the award-winning author was stabbed numerous times in the neck and abdomen before attendees and security apprehended the attacker.

The New York Post said that Rushdie's assailant, an American with Lebanese ancestry in his 20s, had barely read two pages of the book but felt that Rushdie had "attacked Islam."

Rushdie became a worldwide symbol of free expression after receiving numerous death threats over the years.

When asked about his memoir in Frankfurt, Rushdie replied that it seemed "impossible to write anything else."

Suzanne Nossel, chief executive of free speech advocacy group PEN America, said that "since that dreadful day in August in 2022 we have awaited the story of how Salman's would-be assassins finally caught up with him."

"A master storyteller, Salman has held this narrative close until now, leaving us to marvel from a distance at his courage and resilience," she said.

Born in Mumbai but brought up in England as a child, Rushdie shot to fame in 1981 with the publication of his second book, "Midnight's Children".

The book's depiction of post-independence India earned it the coveted Booker Prize in Britain.

However, "The Satanic Verses" garnered him even more notice—mostly unwanted attention.

The author, an atheist whose parents were not practising Muslims, was compelled to hide away.

In Britain, he was given police protection when his publishers and translators were killed or attempted to be killed.

He moved homes a lot while he was in hiding, making it impossible for him to tell his children where he lived.

It was not until the late 1990s that he started to come out of his life of exile, following Iran's 1998 declaration that it would not condone his assassination.

He even starred in films like "Bridget Jones's Diary" and the US sitcom "Seinfeld." He became a mainstay on the global party scene.

He has two kids and has been married five times.

As a supporter of free expression, he vigorously defended the French satirical publication Charlie Hebdo following the 2015 shooting deaths of its employees in Paris by Islamists.

The magazine had included illustrations of Mohammed that incited anger among Muslims across the globe.