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Salman Rushdie has broken his silence six months after being stabbed onstage at a literary event to criticize his ‘idiot’ attacker and reveal he has PTSD and nightmares as a result of the ‘colossal’ attack.
Rusdie was onstage at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York when Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old New Jersey man, attacked him with a knife, stabbing him 15 times in the torso and neck.
Matar’s motive for the attack remains unclear, but in a jailhouse interview last year, he said he disliked author Rushdie because he had “attacked Islam.”
Rushdie spent six weeks in hospital and has been recovering at home ever since. He is speaking now to promote his most recent book, Victory City, which he completed before the attack.
Salman Rushdie is seen for the first time since losing sight in one eye in a stab attack last August
In an interview with the new yorkerhe said he had been ‘better’ but was still in pain and needed constant checkups.
Iran – who has long wanted Rushdie dead He denied having any role in the attack. Kill, in an interview with the new york post office last year, he said he “didn’t like” the author.
‘I don’t like the person. I don’t think he’s a very good person, I don’t like him. I do not like it very much.
Hadi Matar, Rushdie’s attacker, remains in jail awaiting trial
“This is someone who attacked Islam, attacked their beliefs, belief systems,” he said. He remains in the Chautauqua County Jail awaiting trial.
Rushdie called the interview “idiotic”.
‘I don’t know what I think of him, because I don’t know him. All I’ve seen is his stupid interview in the New York Post.
What only an idiot would do. I know the trial is still a long way off. It may not happen until the end of next year. I guess I’ll find out more about him then,’ she said.
While recuperating at home, Rushdie has tried unsuccessfully to find a TV show he likes, calling The White Lotus “awful”.
He said he was not impressed with the Harry and Meghan Netflix docuseries, which he considered “banal”, and that he only enjoyed watching the World Cup.
Rushdie has been over 40 pounds since the attack, has scar tissue on the right side of his face, and has a slight droop on his lower lip.
Considering what happened, I’m not too bad… it was a colossal attack.
‘I’ve been better. But considering what happened, I’m not so bad. As you can see, large wounds essentially heal.
‘I have tenderness in my thumb and forefinger and in the lower half of my palm. I am doing a lot of hand therapy and have been told that I am doing very well.
There have been nightmares, not exactly the incident, but just terrifying.
It seems they are declining. I’m fine. I am able to get up and walk. When I say I’m fine, I mean there are parts of my body that need constant checkups.
“It was a colossal attack,” he said.
Bystanders rushed to help Rushdie at the Chautaqua Institute after the August 12 attack.
Rushdie was airlifted to hospital after the August 12 attack. He spent six weeks there before being released.
He’s tried putting pencil to paper, but says he’s having trouble finding inspiration.
‘There is such a thing as PTSD, you know.
“It has been very, very difficult for me to write. I sit down to write and nothing happens. I write, but it is a combination of emptiness and garbage, things that I write and delete the next day. I’m not out of that woods yet, really.
‘I’ve just never allowed myself to use the phrase ‘writer’s block’.
“Everyone has a moment when there is nothing on your head. And you think, Oh, well, there’s never going to be anything.
“One of the things about being seventy-five years old and having written twenty-one books is that you know if you keep going, something will come of it,” he said.
He is tempted to write a follow-up to his memoir, Joseph Anton, focusing on the mugging, but would do so in the first person, joking, “This doesn’t feel like third person to me.”
“I think when someone sticks a knife in you, it’s a first-person story. That’s a ‘me’ story.
The attacker Hadi Matar said last year that he stabbed Rushdie because he had “attacked Islam”.