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British-American author Salman Rushdie has spoken in chilling detail to the BBC about what he remembers of the near-fatal stabbing at a public event in 2022 that left him blind in one eye and his journey to healing.
The Booker Prize-winning author said his eye was left hanging down his face “like a soft-boiled egg”, and that losing the eye “upsets him every day”.
“I remember thinking I was dying,” he said. “Fortunately, I was wrong.”
Rushdie said he is using his new book Knife, which hit stores on Tuesday, as a way of fighting back against what happened.
The attack took place at an education institute in New York state in August 2022, as he was preparing to give a lecture.
He recalled how the assailant came “sprinting up the stairs” and stabbed him 12 times, including in his neck and abdomen, in an attack lasting 27 seconds.
“I couldn’t have fought him,” the author said. “I couldn’t have run away from him.”
Rushdie said he fell to the floor, where he lay with “a spectacular quantity of blood” all around him.
He was taken to a hospital by helicopter and spent six weeks recovering there.
The India-born author, 76, is one of the most influential writers of modern times. He previously spent several years in hiding after the 1988 publication of The Satanic Verses triggered threats against his life.
His fourth book’s depiction of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and its references to religion were considered blasphemous and banned in multiple Muslim-majority countries.
Iran’s then-leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a religious decree in 1989 calling for Rushdie’s assassination and placing a US$3 million bounty on the author’s head. That fatwa has never been rescinded.
As a result, Rushdie was forced into hiding for nearly a decade and required an armed bodyguard due to the number of death threats he received.
Rushdie admitted in the BBC interview he had thought someone might “jump out of an audience” one day. “Clearly it would’ve been absurd for it not to cross my mind,” he said.
The attack damaged Rushdie’s liver and hands, and severed nerves in his right eye.
His eye looked “very distended, swollen,” he said. “It was kind of hanging out of my face, sitting on my cheek, I’ve said like a soft-boiled egg. And blind.”
He said losing one eye “upsets me every day”. He finds he has to take greater care when walking down stairs, or crossing a road, or even when pouring water into a glass.
But he considers himself lucky to have avoided brain damage. “It meant I was actually still able to be myself.”
For the first time, in Knife, Rushdie has revealed what he would like to say to his alleged attacker.
Hadi Matar, a 26-year-old New Jersey resident, has been charged with stabbing him. Matar has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail.
In an interview with the New York Post from jail, Matar said he had watched videos of Rushdie on YouTube. “I don’t like people who are disingenuous like that,” Matar said.
In Knife, Rushdie has an imaginary conversation with his attacker, in which he responds to that.
“In America, many people pretend to be honest, but they wear masks and lie. And would that be a reason to kill them all?” he asks.
Rushdie has never met Matar. But he is likely to come face to face with him in court when the trial gets under way.
The trial was delayed after lawyers for the defendant argued they were entitled to review Rushdie’s book, as it could be evidence. It’s now expected to take place in August.
Rushdie said he will do public events again, but he will be “more careful” in future. “The security question is going to be the first question. Unless I’m satisfied about that, I’m not going to do it.”
But he added, he is “a pretty obstinate person”.
“I don’t want some restricted or confined life,” he said. “I’m going to have my life.”
“It was kind of hanging out of my face, sitting on my cheek, I’ve said like a soft-boiled egg. And blind.”
