Sir Salman Rushdie to talk at Edinburgh Festival about surviving murder bid

SIR Salman Rushdie will discuss surviving an attempt on his life when he appears at the Edinburgh International Book Festival later this year.

The Satanic Verses author, who was gravely injured when he was repeatedly stabbed on stage in New York in 2022, will address the event remotely on August 17.

The 2024 Edinburgh International Book Festival, running from August 10 to 25, is being held for the first time at the new Edinburgh Futures Institute.

A brand-new series called The Front List will take place at the nearby Mcewan Hall, with highprofile guests discussing current affairs, memoirs and also historical fiction.

The Front List programme, which is hosted by Fringe producer Underbelly, will feature nine authors and will open on August 10 with actors Alan Cumming and Forbes Masson talking about characters from Victor and Barry’s Kelvinside Compendium. The pair also wrote and starred in the 1990s BBC comedy The High Life.

On August 12, LBC host James O’brien will discuss the current state of the UK and his book How They Broke Britain. Alice Oseman, author of Heartstopper – now a smash-hit Netflix series – will appear on August 13, followed by millennial guru Dolly Alderton on August 14.

Booker Prize-winning writer Sir Salman will appear live from his home in New York to talk to journalist Mishal Husain about his new memoir Knife: Meditations After An Attempted Murder, in which he discusses being attacked in August 2022.

Sir Salman was stabbed repeatedly as he gave a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution, suffering wounds in the neck, eye, hand and abdomen.

Historical novelist Philippa Gregory will discuss her new non-fiction book, Normal Women, on August 22, with young adult author Sarah Crossan speaking at an event for secondary school pupils the previous day.

Richard Osman – whose Thursday Murder Club series repeatedly appeared in The Sunday Times’ top 10 bestselling books of 2023 – will talk about the first instalment of his new mystery series, We Solve Murders, on

August 24.

Mental health activist Matt Haig, whose most recent book The Midnight Library has sold nine million copies, returns to the Festival to discuss his upcoming novel The Life Impossible on August 25.

Chairs for the events include crime authors Sir Ian Rankin and Val Mcdermid, as well as national poet Jackie Kay and BBC journalist Husain.

Most events will be streamed live, and all events will be BSL interpreted and captioned.

Tickets will go on sale to the public at 10am on April 25.