Knife by Salman Rushdie audiobook review – 27 seconds that changed everything

The author recalls the attack that almost killed him in an honest, terrifying and life-affirming memoirOn 12 August 2022, Salman Rushdie was at a literary conference in Chautauqua, New York, about to deliver a lecture on keeping writers from harm, when a stranger rushed at him with a knife. Rushdie – who in 1989 had a fatwa issued against him by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini calling for his death, after the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses – was stabbed in his neck, chest, hand and eye.Knife is Rushdie’s memoir of his “near-death” in which he recalls seeing his attacker and thinking to himself: “So it’s you. Here you are.” The attack lasted 27 seconds and, to this day, the author remains bewildered that he didn’t fight back. “Was I so feeble that I couldn’t make the slightest attempt to defend myself?” he asks. As baffling to him is that the man, a Lebanese-American whom he calls “The A” (short for “Assailant” or “Ass”), had never read The Satanic Verses. Instead, he had watched clips of Rushdie lecturing on YouTube and concluded that he was “disingenuous”. Continue reading...

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