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The Release of the Author's Memoir may Cause the Trial of Salman Rushdie's Assailant to be Postponed

Explore Salman Rushdie's gripping memoir 'Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder,' impacting the trial of his assailant. A powerful narrative of resilience and artistic response.
on Jan 04, 2024

The man accused of stabbing Rushdie repeatedly is apparently entitled to the text of the author's forthcoming memoir, "Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder," as part of his trial preparation.

Salman Rushdie's plans to publish a book about a 2022 assassination attempt may cause the trial of his accused assailant, which is set to begin next week, to be postponed.

During a pretrial session, Chautauqua County Judge David Foley stated that Hadi Matar, the man charged with repeatedly stabbing Rushdie as the author was being presented for a lecture, is entitled to the manuscript and accompanying material as part of his trial preparation.

Foley has given Matar and his attorney until today, Wednesday, January 3, to decide if they want to postpone the trial until they have the book in hand, either in advance from the publisher or when it is released in April.
After the hearing, defence attorney Nathaniel Barone stated that he preferred a postponement but will confer with Matar.

The jury selection process is set to begin on January 8th.

Rushdie, who was blinded in his right eye and suffered a broken left hand in the August 2022 attack, stated last year that he has written a memoir about it: "Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder ."

The 256-page book is set to be released on April 16th.

"This was a necessary book for me to write: a way to take charge of what happened, and to answer violence with art," Rushdie said in a statement released by Penguin Random House.

"'Knife' is a searing book, and a reminder of the power of words to make sense of the unthinkable," said Nihar Malaviya, CEO of Penguin Random House, in a statement. "We are honoured to publish it, and amazed at Salman's determination to tell his story, and to return to the work he loves."
When the attorneys involved in the case learned about the book, trial preparation was already well underway.

Rushdie's attorneys, according to District Attorney Jason Schmidt, refused the prosecutor's request for a copy of the book, citing intellectual property rights.Schmidt downplayed the book's significance in the impending trial, despite the fact that the attack was witnessed by a huge, live audience and Rushdie himself may testify.

"There were recordings of it," Schmidt claimed of the attack.

Matar, 26, of New Jersey, has been imprisoned without bond since his arrest on the day Rushdie was stabbed in front of a horrified audience at the Chautauqua Institution, a summer arts and education retreat in western New York.
Matar, according to Schmidt, was on a "mission to kill Mr. Rushdie" when he rushed from the audience to the stage and stabbed him more than a dozen times before being subdued by spectators.

In a jailhouse interview with The New York Post following his detention, Matar lauded late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and said Rushdie "attacked Islam."

Rushdie spent years in hiding after Khomeini issued a fatwa in 1989 ordering his murder in response to the release of his novel "The Satanic Verses," which some Muslims consider blasphemous. Rushdie has travelled much during the last two decades.
"Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder" will be published in the United States by Random House, the Penguin Random House imprint that published his novel "Victory City" last year before the incident.

Rushdie was named one of Euronews Culture's People of the Year 2023, a group of eight individuals who touched, influenced, and defined a year in European and global culture.

We went on to say: "Known the world over for his exceptional writing and advocating on free speech, his 2023 comeback after such a traumatic ordeal showed, once again, Rushdie's resilience in the face of violent adversity, standing up against those that threaten to censor creative voices."