Salman Rushdie has Announced the Publication of a Memoir about a Knife Attack

Salman Rushdie's memoir 'Knife' detailing life after a harrowing attack, set to release on April 16th.

on Oct 12, 2023

Salman Rushdie has Announced the Publication of a Memoir about a Knife Attack | Frontlist

'Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder' will be released on April 16th.
More than a year after being stabbed in a lecture hall in western New York while making a speech onstage, losing an eye and suffering terrible injuries to his left hand, forcing him into months of solitude and recovery, Booker Prize-winning novelist Salman Rushdie has announced the publication of a memoir about the attack.

"This was a necessary book for me to write: a way to take responsibility for what happened and to respond to violence with art," Rushdie said in a statement.Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder will be released on April 16 by Penguin Random House, the same company that published his current and 15th novel, Victory City, about a 14th-century princess who, through the power of words and storytelling, gives rise to the historical Vijayanagara empire.

"Salman Rushdie responds to violence with art, reminding us of the power of words to make sense of the unthinkable, speaking out for the first time, and in unforgettable detail, about the traumatic events of August 12, 2022." The Penguin website describes Knife as "a gripping, intimate, and ultimately life-affirming meditation on life, loss, love, art — and finding the strength to stand up again." More information is awaited.

"Knife is a piercing novel that reminds us of the power of language to make sense of the unthinkable." "We are honoured to publish it, and we are inspired by Salman's determination to tell his story and return to the work he loves," said Penguin Random House CEO Nihar Malaviya in a statement.

Rushdie was the target of a fatwa issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Iranian Supreme Leader, in 1989, shortly after the release of his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, a fictionalised account of the Prophet's life. Blasphemy was accused of being promoted in the novel. Rushdie went into hiding for six years after the fatwa, under danger of violence from all around the world, and travelled from the United Kingdom to the United States.

Rushdie won the Booker Prize in 1981 for his second novel, Midnight's Children, which is about children born at midnight on August 15, 1947, the day India gained independence. For the next thirty years, their destiny were bound together by telepathic (and other) powers.