London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

Sir Salman Rushdie speaks for the first time about 'colossal attack'

Sir Salman Rushdie speaks for the first time about 'colossal attack'

Sir Salman Rushdie has spoken for the first time about being stabbed last year at an event in New York.

In an interview with The New Yorker, Sir Salman said he was "lucky... my main overwhelming feeling is gratitude".

The award-winning novelist was attacked on stage ahead of a speech in August and spent six weeks in hospital.

He subsequently lost vision in one eye. Sir Salman has long faced death threats for his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses.

In a wide-ranging interview with David Remnick, the novelist said: "I've been better. But, considering what happened, I'm not so bad.

"The big injuries are healed, essentially. I have feeling in my thumb and index finger and in the bottom half of the palm. I'm doing a lot of hand therapy, and I'm told that I'm doing very well."

But he said it was difficult to type and to write due to a lack of feeling in some of his fingertips.

Victory City is about a nine-year-old girl who has a divine encounter that will change the course of history

"I'm able to get up and walk around. When I say I'm fine, I mean, there are bits of my body that need constant check ups. It was a colossal attack."

He said he also has mental scars from the attack and that he is having to rethink his approach to security, having lived without it for more than two decades.

"There is such a thing as PTSD, you know," he said. "I've found it very, very difficult to write. I sit down to write, and nothing happens. I write, but it's a combination of blankness and junk, stuff that I write and that I delete the next day. I'm not out of that forest yet, really."

The man suspected of stabbing Sir Salman, Hadi Matar, has been charged with attempted murder.

Sir Salman was forced into hiding for nearly 10 years after The Satanic Verses was published in 1988.

Many Muslims reacted with fury to it, arguing that the portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad insulted their faith.

He faced death threats and the then-Iranian leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa - or decree - calling for Sir Salman's assassination, placing a $3m (£2.5m) bounty on the author's head.

The fatwa remains active, and although Iran's government has distanced itself from Mr Khomeini's decree, a quasi-official Iranian religious foundation added a further $500,000 (£416,000) to the reward in 2012.

Remnick asked Sir Salman if he thinks he should have been more on guard after moving to New York in 2000, having previously lived underground for several years.

"Well, I'm asking myself that question, and I don't know the answer to it," he said. "I did have more than 20 years of life. So, is that a mistake? Also, I wrote a lot of books."

Rushdie's latest novel, Victory City was finished just before the attack and is being published later this week.

"I've always tried very hard not to adopt the role of a victim," he said. "Then you're just sitting there saying, 'somebody stuck a knife in me! Poor me'... Which I do sometimes think!"

"But what I don't think is: That's what I want people reading the book to think. I want them to be captured by the tale, to be carried away."

Rushdie is aware Victory City will have to compete with his recent real-life drama.

"I'm hoping that to some degree it might change the subject. I've always thought that my books are more interesting than my life," he said. "Unfortunately, the world appears to disagree."

He talks about how the book, set in 14th Century southern India, can be read as an allegory about the abuse of power and the curse of sectarianism.

Sir Salman is critical of the country's current prime minister, Narendra Modi.

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi's ideology of strident Hindu nationalism, combined with promises of economic development, remains a big draw with voters


"The Modi government is very popular. It has huge support. And that makes it possible for them to get away with everything… to create this very autocratic state, which is unkind of minorities. Which is fantastically oppressive of journalists. Where people are very afraid.

"It's getting difficult to call it a democracy."

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×