Sir Salman Rushdie says he has ‘no explanation’ for how he survived a brutal stabbing. In his new book he writes that it felt like ‘a miracle’.
The Booker Prize-winning author, who was stabbed in New York in 2022, has given his first TV interview about the attack, describing how his attacker “came in hard and low – a crouch rocket.”
It led to him being in hospital for six weeks and losing his right eye. Doctors said he was lucky to escape with his life.
Sir Salman Rushdie says he has ‘no explanation’ for how he survived a brutal stabbing and writes in his new book that it felt like ‘a miracle’
Hadi Matar, the man accused of attempting to murder British writer Salman Rushdi, in 2022
But the Indian-born novelist, a fierce critic of religion, described how his brush with death left him grappling with how and why he had survived.
“This is a contradiction,” he admitted in the interview with the American show 60 Minutes.
‘How can someone who doesn’t believe in the supernatural explain that something that feels like a miracle has happened? I have no explanation for it.’
Sir Salman, 76, is the author of the 1988 novel The Satanic Verses, which led to Iran’s supreme leader calling for his death and placing a £2.5 million bounty on his head.
Sir Salman, 76, is the author of the 1988 novel The Satanic Verses, which led to Iran’s supreme leader calling for his death and a £2.5 million bounty being placed on his head
In the decades since, he said, he had “sometimes imagined my killer rising in some public forum.”
He added that his first thought when he saw his attacker advancing on him at the Chautauqua Institution in New York was, “So it’s you. Here you are.’
The novelist has written an account of the stabbing titled Knife: Meditations After An Attempted Murder, which will be published next week.