‘It was a colossal attack’
Sir Salman Rushdie breaks his silence over near-fatal knifing
SIR Salman rushdie has spoken for the first time about being millimetres from death in a frenzied knife assault.
The author said the “colossal attack” has left him struggling to write again.
The 75-year-old was left blind in one eye and with severe nerve damage in his left hand after being stabbed on stage at a literary event in New York last August.
He has lost three stone and said he has had nightmares.
Sir Salman added that while he has “tried very hard not to adopt the role of a victim”, he now suffers post-traumatic stress.
He said: “I’ve found it very, very difficult to write. I sit down to write and nothing happens. I write but it’s a combination of blankness and junk – stuff that I write and delete the next day. I’m not out of that forest yet, really.”
Sir Salman detailed his recovery in an interview with the New Yorker magazine ahead of the launch of his new book, Victory City, written before the attack.
He said he has spent the past seven months at his New York home, watching “crap television”.
He added: “The big injuries are healed, essentially. I’m doing a lot of hand therapy, and I’m told I’m doing very well.
“There have been nightmares. Not exactly the incident, but just frightening. Those seem to be diminishing. I’m fine. I’m able to get up and walk around. When I say I’m fine, I mean there are bits of my body that need constant check-ups. It was a colossal attack.”
The Booker Prize winner – whose 1988 novel The Satanic Verses led to a fatwa calling for his death – joked that the attack has made him more popular. He said: “Now that
I’ve almost died, everybody loves me. That was my mistake back then. Not only did I live, but I tried to live well. Bad mistake. Get 15 stab wounds, much better.”
Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview in New Jersey, has been charged with second-degree attempted murder and second-degree assault, which he denies, and will likely be tried next year.
He has reportedly refused to say if the fatwa by late Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini led to the attack.
Asked about his attacker, Sir Salman called him “an idiot”.
I’ve found it very, very difficult to write. I’m not out of that forest yet, really
SALMAN RUSHDIE TELLS HOW KNIFE ATTACK HAS AFFECTED HIM