Knife by Salman Rushdie

Knife by Salman Rushdie is a short memoir on the attack he suffered in 2022 and the road to recovery. He was almost killed by a man who read only a few pages of The Satanic Verses and watched some clips on YouTube. Rushdie has a fatwa since the 1980s, when the book was published. I didn’t read the book because it is not the kind of books I usually read, but I wanted very much to read his memoir and I’m glad I did.

The book covers less than 2 years, starting a few days before the attack on 12 August 2022 and continuing with the attack and the aftermath, until 2024. This is a deeply personal account of the ordeal, the time spent in the hospital, and going back to normal life, as normal as it can be considering that the fatwa is still in place and he is still a target.

He talks beautifully about his wife, which he met only a few years before the attack. They were recently married when it happened. He talks about his sons and how they dealt with his attack. He has an imaginary conversation with his attacker and I found that emotional to read. He talks about his writing, saying ‘if you are afraid of the consequences of what you say, then you are not free’. He also said that ‘I recalled thinking back then that there were two ways in which the fatwa could derail me, destroy me as an artist: if I started writing “frightened” books, or if I started writing “revenge” books.’
Overall the book offers so much and it is a wonderful read. I highly recommend it.

Knife by Salman Rushdie

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My rating: 5/5 Stars
Would I recommend it: yes!
Published by: Jonathan Cape
Year it was published: 2024
Format: Hardcover
Genre(s): Memoir
Pages: 209

About the author: Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie is an Indian-born British and American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations, typically set on the Indian subcontinent. Rushdie’s second novel, Midnight’s Children (1981), won the Booker Prize in 1981 and was deemed to be “the best novel of all winners” on two occasions, marking the 25th and the 40th anniversary of the prize.
After his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses (1988), Rushdie became the subject of several assassination attempts and death threats, including a fatwa calling for his death issued by Khomeini, the supreme leader of Iran. In total, 20 countries banned the book. Numerous killings and bombings have been carried out by extremists who cite the book as motivation, sparking a debate about censorship and religiously motivated violence. In 2022, Rushdie survived a stabbing at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York.
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