Salman Rushdie turns the page after stabbing
A pro-Iran extremist put his sights in his right eye and almost killed him, but Salman Rushdie’s irrepressible creative spirit – and his sense of humor – are still “intact”.
The 75-year-old author, who was attacked by a knife-wielding Lebanese-American from New Jersey during a lecture in western New York in August, is out with his 13th novel, Victory City, in February, and friends say he’s in good spirits mood during recovery.
“He can joke about his condition with a smile on his face,” former BBC manager Alan Yentob told the Sunday Times of London. “I think he’s doing it partly to make people around him think he’s not sitting there and he’s a different Salman.”
A camera was set up at Oxford’s Bodleian Library last weekend so the Indian-born author could tune in from 3,500 miles away in New York while other acclaimed writers read his work in homage, including excerpts from his new novel and other writings .
For attendees, it was more than an opportunity to show their solidarity with Rushdie, who was stabbed for his “Satanic Verses,” which he wrote more than three decades ago.
Rushdie was loaded into a MedEvac helicopter after he was attacked onstage at an event in Chautauqua, New York earlier this year.
Rushdie sustained serious injuries from the attack.
Hadi Matar was on trial in August for attempted murder and assault on the 75-year-old author.
“I think there’s another feature,” said writer Ian McEwan, “that just reminds us that Salman isn’t first and foremost a victim: he’s first and foremost a wonderful writer. listening to his work and . . . not just to see him as a symbol of freedom of expression, but as a wonderful writer.”
McEwan also said he “exchanged emails” with his colleague and that Rushdie’s sense of humor was “intact” so “I should think everything else is too.”
Rushdie has long faced death threats over the 1988 novel, which some Muslims believed challenged and mocked some of the religion’s most important tenets. Rushdie was attacked on the stage at the Chautauqua Institution on August 12, two minutes after beginning an interview about how America can be a haven for persecuted writers. ie in dream sequences, challenges and at times seems to mock some of his most sensitive principles.
In the August attack, Rushdie – who had previously spent many years in hiding because of a $3 million Iranian bounty on his head – was stabbed at least 10 times, leaving a damaged liver and severed nerves in an arm and ankle eye suffered.
The attack happened on August 12 at the Chautauqua Institution.
British author Ian McEwan also said that Rushdie’s sense of humor was “intact”.
Days later, his alleged assailant, Hadi Matar, of Fairview, NJ, told the Post in an exclusive prison interview that he was “surprised” that the writer survived the attack.
However, the 24-year-old was clear on whether he was inspired by the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who issued a fatwa or edict in 1989 calling for Rushdie’s death over “The Satanic Verses,” citing one warning his defense attorney.
Following his discharge from hospital, Rushdie remains in the care of his fifth wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, a 44-year-old US poet whom he married last summer.
https://nypost.com/2022/11/19/salman-rushdie-turning-page-after-knife-attack/ Salman Rushdie turns the page after stabbing
