Not to be outdone, the reason why "Knife" exists is the attack that happened to me. But while I was writing it, I was afraid that I would be traumatized by everything again. And in the first chapter, the very moment of the attack is described in detail. And it was damn hard to write, says author Salman Rushdie, whose new book "Knife: Meditations after an Assassination Attempt" was published earlier this week by Random House.
"I have a very good therapist and that's why, with his help, this book could see the light of day. I talked to him every Sunday about what I was doing. And that was very helpful. It cleared my mind," said Salman Rushdie. in an interview with the AP agency, on the occasion of the release of the book "Knife" (Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder), in which he writes in detail about the moment in the summer of 2022 when Hadi Matar, an American of Lebanese origin, tried to kill him with 12 stab wounds in the back, face and abdomen, on the eve of the writer's lecture in New York in front of a terrified audience.
"If someone had told me what was going to happen to me, I wouldn't have been at all optimistic about my chances. I'm not a very scared person. You know, I'm just a normal person who hopes that terrible things like these don't happen. happen, and that no one has to face fear and pain," said Ruždi, as reports Nova.rs.
He once told Rushda that, after Ayatollah Khomeini threw a fatwa at him because of the "Satanic Verses", he had a trial to write and create. Hence the question of whether he still has a problem writing fiction, given that "Knife" is anything but a fictional depiction of the terrible moment after which he lost sight in his right eye?
"I don't have an idea for the next novel right now. I hope I will. The only fiction I've started writing since I finished the novel 'Knife' is more of a story, a novella. And I don't know what to do with it. The story is about sixty pages long I don't know if I should stay on the novella, or if I should add something, and make something else out of everything".
In "Knife" he writes that he is trying to take over his life again. And writing helped him in that:
"I'm always happiest when I have to write a book".
And while there are a hundred different ways to look at the attack and the consequences it left behind, the question arises, did all that affect the writer's imagination?
"Well, it is. For more than six months after the attack, I couldn't think of writing. I wasn't even physically strong enough. And when I finally sat down to write, I definitely didn't want to write a novel like this. I wanted to go back to fiction. And I tried , but it seemed stupid to me. And I said to myself: 'Listen, something dramatic happened to you.' the writer was honest.
In the book, he describes the moment when the attacker approaches him, wanting to kill him, and the inner voice that tells him: "And here he is."
"A long time ago, when the danger for me was great, I didn't think about it. But I did think about the fact that one day someone could jump out of the audience and attack me. I even dreamed about it more than once."
Asked if he ever feared that it might be his fate, he replied that he does not believe in fate. Not even by chance.
"I only believe in taking care of my own life."
The attacker, Hadi Matar (26) from New Jersey, was not even born when "The Satanic Verses" was published in 1988, and speaking about the controversies that have followed the book since its publication, Rushdie emphasizes that many have not even read it:
"They just tied the name of the book inextricably to my name in order to demonize me as a bad guy. And I know almost nothing about the guy who attacked me. I only heard what his mother said - that when he came back to America from Lebanon, from visiting his father, he was much more religious, ready to criticize his mother for not teaching him well about religious matters. And what did he do there... Playing video games and watching videos why did he fixate on me? I don't know…”
When asked if, growing up, he thought he would be a person who would get into trouble, he answered - not at all, adding:
"I was a very quiet child. Well, I was well-behaved. My sister, who is a year younger than me, was the naughty one in the family. She would beat up those who bullied me instead of me, and I would get her out I had the feeling that I was loved as a child, and I was always a good student. And I gave myself the right to do various things. I was 21 years old I'm a child of the sixties."
When asked how much he has changed compared to the period two years ago, when the attack in New York happened, when he narrowly escaped death, he pointed out that he is still the same, but...
"It seems to me that I am carrying some heavy iron in my soul. When you look death in the eyes like that, it remains somewhere deep inside you... A shadow remains, like the constant presence of the end," explained Salman Rushdie, even managing to joke with the words that now she feels like she's 25:
"One of the most beautiful things about writing is that you need some youthful vigor to write. Writing requires energy, imagination, dreaming. It's a game for the young. I once said that when you're young and you're writing, you should fake it wisdom. And when you're old, you fake energy. That's what I'm trying to do..."
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