Survival of an Author

Knife: 

Meditations After an Attempted Murder 

by Salman Rushdie

“we would not be who we are today without the calamities of our yesterdays.”   ― Salman Rushdie, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder

Salman Rushdie’s Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder is a raw and introspective memoir that chronicles the author’s survival of a near-fatal stabbing in August 2022, as well as his reflections on life, art, and freedom in its aftermath. Written with one eye and limited use of one hand due to injuries sustained in the attack, the book is a personal reflection as well as a more general reflection on the forces that have influenced Rushdie's life, particularly the fatwa that was issued against him in 1989 after The Satanic Verses was published.

Rushdie opens with the brutal irony of the attack at the Chautauqua Institution, where he was getting ready to give a speech about defending writers from harm. He was stabbed 15 times in 27 seconds by a man in black who hurried onto the stage, leaving him partially paralyzed and blind in one eye. Gripping and unflinching, the first chapters describe the physical trauma and the immediate aftermath in a way that is both horrific and compassionate. Rushdie's ability to inject humor into this gloom—wailing over the destruction of his Ralph Lauren suit in the midst of the mayhem—gives a hint of his tenacity and unique voice.

The memoir unfolds in two broad movements: the attack and recovery, followed by a more reflective exploration of its meaning. Rushdie doesn’t dwell excessively on The Satanic Verses controversy, asserting that the assault by his attacker (referred to only as “the A”) wasn’t truly about that book—the assailant had barely read it. Instead, he frames the incident as a collision of personal and civilizational forces—a loner’s misguided rage intersecting with decades of ideological tension. This is where Knife shines as a literary work: Rushdie uses his novelist’s eye to probe the absurdity and tragedy of the event, imagining conversations with his attacker to grapple with motives that remain opaque.

Stylistically, the book is quintessential Rushdie—long, winding sentences peppered with literary allusions, from Shakespeare to Beckett, and a playful yet pointed use of language (e.g., calling his assailant “the Asinine man”). The prose is often lyrical and profound, especially when he reflects on love—particularly for his wife, Eliza Griffiths, whose support anchors his healing—or the power of art to defy violence.

In the end, Knife is Rushdie reclaiming his narrative—refusing to be defined solely as a victim. It’s not his deepest work philosophically, nor his most polished, but it’s among his most human. For readers new to Rushdie, it’s an accessible entry into his world; for longtime fans, it’s a testament to his enduring spirit. As he writes, “Language was my knife”—and with it, he carves meaning from chaos.