Award-winning author Sir Salman Rushdie has revealed his extraordinary experience after the near-fatal attack that almost claimed his life. In an exclusive interview with LA News Center’s Anderson Cooper, Rushdie shared his harrowing journey, calling his survival a “miracle.”
The Miraculous Escape
“I don’t believe in the supernatural, so how do I account for something that feels like a miracle?” Rushdie questioned, recounting the incident. “I certainly don’t believe a hand reached down from the sky, but I do believe something extraordinary happened.”
On that fateful day, as Rushdie prepared to give a lecture, he was brutally attacked on stage. The knifeman, Hadi Matar, stabbed him multiple times, causing severe injuries.
“One of the surgeons who saved my life told me, ‘first, you were really unlucky, but then you were really lucky… the lucky part was that the man who attacked you had no idea how to kill a man with a knife,'” Rushdie recalled, his voice a mixture of gratitude and wonder.
The Shadow of the Past
The attack brought to the forefront the decades-long controversy surrounding Rushdie’s novel, “The Satanic Verses.” Its publication in 1988 sparked global protests, leading to the infamous fatwa issued by the Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khamenei, calling for Rushdie’s death.
“I saw the man in black running towards me like a ‘squat missile,'” Rushdie described. “It felt like something coming out of the distant past to drag me back… to kill me.” This encounter forced him to confront the ongoing threat to his life.
The Power of Words
In the wake of the attack, Rushdie struggled to process the trauma. But ultimately, he found solace in his lifelong passion: writing.
“Language is a way of breaking open the world,” he stated. “I don’t have any other weapons, but I’ve been using this particular tool for a long time, and so I thought this was my way of dealing with it.”
The result is Rushdie’s upcoming memoir, “Knife,” which chronicles his harrowing experience in exquisite detail.
Living with a Shadow
While Rushdie recognizes he is fundamentally unchanged, the attack has indelibly marked him.
“I feel that it has left a shadow, which is sometimes dark, sometimes not… I just feel more the presence of death,” he admitted.
Despite the ongoing threat and the lingering consequences of the attack, Rushdie remains a symbol of resilience and the indomitable power of words to challenge authority and break down barriers.
