The Indian-born British-American author of books including The Satanic Verses and Midnight’s Children also discussed the 2022 attack, which left him blind in one eye, during a Q&A at an English PEN event -club at Southbank Centre.
“I have a very old-fashioned view of freedom of speech,” said Rushdie, who appeared remotely from his New York home to mark the launch of his new memoir, Knife: Reflections on an Assassination Attempt. “The protection of free speech begins the moment someone says something you don’t like.”
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“It’s a very simple thing, but it’s forgotten. That’s what’s written in the First Amendment. . . . It feels like there’s a younger generation in the U.S. that seems to forget the value of that. Often for reasons they think are virtuous, they’re ready to suppress the kinds of speech they don’t like. It’s a slippery slope. And be careful, because the person sliding down that slope could be you.”
Rushdie stated that academic circles in America were “in serious trouble … because of colossal political divisions. And everyone is so angry that it seems very difficult to find common ground.”
Donald Trump – a jerk and a liar
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The Booker Prize winner, whose books have been translated into more than 40 languages, discussed the prospect of a second Trump presidency with author and critic Erica Wagner and encouraged young people in the US “not to make the mistake of not voting”.
He said: “The impact will be very big and negative. The second time would be worse because it would be unleashed and vengeful. All he talks about is revenge. And that’s a bad political platform – to want to be president, to to get revenge on your enemies. People in New York understood the point of Donald Trump long before he tried to run for office. Everyone knew that he was a jerk and a liar. And unfortunately, America had to find that out the hard way . I just hope they don’t take his bait again.”
About the attempt and describing it in a book
On August 12, 2022, Rushdie was about to give a lecture at the Chautauqua Institute in New York State when a man burst onto the stage and stabbed him about 10 times with a knife. “I saw the man in black running towards me from the right side of the seats,” he recalls in his new book. The writer was hospitalized for six weeks.
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On 21 April, he stated that for six months he had been unable to think about writing, but then it occurred to him that it would be “ridiculous” to write about anything else. He describes the difficulty of writing the first chapter, “in which I have to describe in detail the exact nature of the attack. It was very difficult to do”.
The Knife, the writer says, is “the only book I’ve written with the help of a therapist. He gave me back control of the narrative. Instead of being a person lying on a stage in a pool of blood, I’m a person writing a book about a person, who lives on stage with a pool of blood. I felt good”.
Rushdie also spoke about the postponement of the trial of his attacker, Hadi Matar. He said Matar’s not guilty plea was “absurd” and that he would testify at any future trial. “I don’t mind being in the courtroom with him. That should worry him,” Rushdie said, as quoted by BGNES.
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