London:

 Booker Prize-winning author Salman Rushdie has revealed the decision behind not naming his would-be assassin in his new memoir ‘Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder’ was to rob him of “the oxygen of publicity”.

Addressing a literary event at the Southbank Centre in London on Sunday virtually from New York, the 76-year-old Mumbai-born British-American novelist was in conversation with author and critic Erica Wagner about his account of the brutal on-stage knife attack in which he permanently lost vision in one eye.

He credited former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher with the phrase “oxygen of publicity”, which she used in the context of the violent attacks of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the 1980s, as the motivation behind referring to his attacker only as “A” in the book.

“That phrase, the oxygen of publicity, somehow stuck in my head. And I thought, well, so this guy had his 27 seconds of fame and now he should go back to being a nobody. I’m not going to name him, I don’t want his name in my book,” said Rushdie.

“So, I use this initial ‘A’ because I thought there were many things he was: a would-be assassin, an assailant, an adversary; he was many things, he was an ass,” he said, with a wry smile.

The acclaimed author was on stage at the Chautauqua Institution in New York in August 2022 when he was stabbed up to 10 times by the accused Hadi Matar, who awaits trial for attempted murder in prison. But the author revealed that he did not feel anger towards his assailant and the new book was his way of taking control of the narrative.

“What it did do, I feel, is it gave me back control of the narrative. So, instead of being a man lying on the stage in a pool of blood, I’m a man writing a book about a man lying on the stage with a pool of blood. And that felt like it gave me back the power; my story, that I’m telling in my way, and that felt good,” he shared.

Rushdie is well known as a writer of magical realism, something he attributes to his early childhood in India and growing up with fantastical tales.

“I’m quite down to earth in my world view, I don’t believe in miracles and things like that but somehow my books always have…I think a lot of that has to do with having grown up in a world in India, where all the stories you first hear are kind of fantastic tales, fable like and magical,” said the author, who won the Booker of Bookers for ‘Midnight’s Children’ – a fable like tale about modern India.

“I always thought that was a good way to approach things and that somehow you could even get closer to the truth about human nature by abandoning realism. Also, I thought the world has abandoned realism. We don’t live in realism, we live in surrealism,” he noted.

But of his own survival from the brutal knife attack, Rushdie has a more pragmatic view: “So many people have said to me that my survival was a miracle. I don’t believe any kind of divine hand reached down and helped me out. But I do believe in other kinds of miracles, I believe in medical miracles. I believe in the miracle of surgeons and just luck.

“So much of human life is determined by chance… the fact is that he tried very hard to kill me, but actually, he missed.” The event, which was streamed globally, formed part of the Southbank Centre’s Spring Season of Literature and Spoken Word, which brings together internationally-acclaimed authors, artists, historians, politicians and journalists.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Frankfurt, Germany:

Author Salman Rushdie on Friday called for a “cessation” in fighting between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, saying he was filled with “horror” and “foreboding”.

Hamas group rushed into Israel from the Gaza Strip on October 7 and killed at least 1,400 people, mostly civilians who were shot, mutilated or burnt to death, according to Israeli officials.

Israel said around 1,500 Hamas fighters were killed before its army regained control of the area under attack.

More than 4,000 Palestinians, mainly civilians, have been killed in Gaza in relentless Israeli bombardments in retaliation for the Hamas attack, according to the latest toll from the Hamas health ministry in Gaza.

Making a rare public appearance since a near-fatal stabbing attack in the United States last year, Rushdie said he was horrified at the escalating conflict.

“I am filled with horror about the attack by Hamas,” the British writer told a press conference at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the world’s biggest publishing trade event.

“I’m filled with foreboding about what (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu might do in return.

“I just hope that there can be a cessation in hostilities at the earliest point.”

‘Difficult year’ 

Rushdie lost sight in one eye after the attack by a knife-wielding assailant who jumped on stage at an arts event in New York state in August 2022.

The author, a naturalised American based in New York, has faced death threats since his 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses” was declared blasphemous by Iran’s supreme leader.

Wearing glasses with a black lens over his right eye, Rushdie said on Friday: “It’s obviously been a difficult year.”

“But I’m happy to be back in reasonable health,” added the author, who is to receive the prestigious Peace Prize of the German Book Trade on Sunday.

The knife attack “was a pretty harsh and sharp reminder” of the fatwa issued against him, he said.

He added that it was “somewhat surprising” as “the temperature had cooled off”.

“I’m just happy to still be here to say so. It was a close thing.”

Threats to democratic values 

The award-winning author, 76, was stabbed multiple times in the neck and abdomen at a literary conference before attendees and guards subdued the assailant.

Earlier this month, Rushdie’s publishers announced he would next April release a memoir about the attack entitled “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder”.

Asked about the new work, he said it seemed “impossible to write anything else”.

“It would seem kind of absurd to write something else until I had dealt with this subject.”

He also voiced concern about threats to democracy in some parts of the world, referring to the “madness of the (US) Republican Party”.

“It’s very worrying that one of the major political parties in the United States seems to have departed from democratic values and moved towards a kind of cult of personality,” he said.

Rushdie singled out India — where he was born in 1947 — saying there was “increasing risk to journalists and anyone who stands up against or criticises the administration”.

He also criticised recent moves to prosecute Booker Prize-winning Indian novelist Arundhati Roy.

“She is one of the great writers of India and a person of enormous integrity and passion,” he said.

“The idea that she should be brought to court for expressing those values is disgraceful.”

Earlier this month, Indian media reported that Roy — a trenchant critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government — could be prosecuted for a 2010 speech about Kashmir.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)