Sir Salman Rushdie told Sky News he thought it would be “the end” for him after being repeatedly stabbed at a public lecture in 2022.
The Indian-born British author suffered life-changing injuries including the loss of his right eye after the attack at the Chautauqua Institution in New York State.
Speaking to The World with Yalda Hakim, the author described the “unpleasant experience”, where he recalled that the attacker had a “free run” at him and within 30 seconds Sir Salman suffered more than a dozen different injuries.
“Half a minute with a knife… You can do a lot,” he said, adding that the knifeman was only contained after the surprise attack.
The distinguished novelist said he was lucky to come out of the incident alive.
The 76-year-old said: “Luckily he missed a lot of places that would have been immediately fatal. Although there was a large cut on my neck, it did not reach the artery.
“Although there were three injuries to my torso, it didn’t reach my heart – in that sense it was fortunate in the midst of an unpleasant experience.”
After the attack, Sir Salman said he remembered “lying on the ground in a large lake of blood, and I distinctly remember thinking this was about to be the end”, adding: “Luckily, I was wrong.” .
Witnesses rush to help perpetrator after attack
In 1989, from Iran the then leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa calling for the author’s death after the publication of his book, The Satanic Verses, which many Muslims consider blasphemy.
Sir Salman held hundreds of public events before Chautauqua, where he was scheduled to speak about freedom of speech, and said that “there had never been any hint of a problem before” and that this attack “came out of nowhere.”
Your alleged attacker – Hadi Matara 24-year-old New Jersey man has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.
‘Fighting’ with fanaticism
The author who has lived in the USA for 20 years has rarely given in to extremism and firmly defends the principle of freedom of expression.
In his new book, Knife: Meditations After An Attempted Murder, Sir Salman talks about the attack.
He said, “If something as significant as this happens in a writer’s life, it’s not uncommon for me to confront the issue. I felt like taking back control of the narrative. The book is my way of doing that.”
When asked about Incident at Batley Grammar Schoolwhere a teacher who showed a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad was forced into hiding, Sir Salman said the situation was “dire”.
“It’s shameful that this could happen… We hope the government takes action to stop this type of fanaticism from spreading.”
Read more: Why is Salman Rushdie so controversial?
Some scenes from The Satanic Verses portray a character inspired by the Prophet Muhammad and the book was burned around the world and the work’s translators were attacked – Hitoshi Igarashi, who translated it into Japanese, was murdered in 1991.
With regard to the recent decision in which a Muslim student lost a legal challenge against the “ban on prayer” in schools, Sir Salman said: “School is a place where you are educated and mosques are places where you go to pray and you cannot turn one thing into another.”
In a message aimed at young people, Sir Salman said: “Islam has historically not been like this. The Indian Islam I grew up in was Sufi, mystical and entirely peaceful.
“I recommend that people study a little more broadly the more traditional forms of Islam that don’t have these interests of violence.”
On April 21, Sir Salman will discuss his latest book and the attack as part of a series of events for the Southbank Centre’s Spring Literature and Spoken Word Season.
Sir Salman began his writing career in the early 1970s and won the Booker Prize in 1981 for his novel Midnight’s Children, about the birth of modern India.
This story originally appeared on News.sky.com read the full story
