Salman Rushdie to release book about his knife attack in 2024

The American-British writer Salman Rushdie will release a book in the spring of 2024 on the knife attack which almost cost him his life in the summer of 2022, to respond “to violence through art”, his publisher announced on Wednesday Penguin Random House.

“It was a necessary book for me, a way of coming to terms with what happened and responding to violence through art,” said the writer of Indian origin, 76 years old, icon of freedom. of expression in the West, in a press release from Penguin Random House. The book will be released on April 16, 2024 in more than 15 countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, adds the publisher. Editions Gallimard have announced a French release for April 18, 2024, while its novels had until now been mainly published in France by Actes Sud.

Salman Rushdie, who has lived since 1989 under the threat of death from a fatwa issued by Iran, after the publication of his book The Satanic Verses, was attacked with a knife on August 12, 2022 during a literary conference in Chautauqua, in the New York area, by a young American of Lebanese origin suspected of being a sympathizer of Shiite Iran.

Also read: One year after his attack, Salman Rushdie releases one of his best books

Seriously injured, the writer lost the sight in one eye in this attack and said he had great difficulty writing six months after the events. Her latest novel, Victory City, “an epic tale of a woman” in the 14th century, released in the United States in February 2023, was written before the attack.

The Knife: Reflections Following an Assassination Attempt is “a powerful, deeply personal and ultimately uplifting meditation on life, loss, love, the power of art, the strength to keep moving forward – and to raise,” according to a press release from Penguin Random House. Salman Rushdie speaks "for the first time, and in unforgettable detail", about the attack of which he was the victim, adds the publisher. Author of around fifteen novels, stories for young people, short stories and essays, Salman Rushdie received the Booker Prize in 1981, one of the most prestigious literary awards for “Midnight's Children”.