OUR Salman Rushdie announced that he was writing a book about a knife attack at an event in New York last year, an attack that resulted in the loss of one of his eyes.

“I’m trying to write a book about the attack on me – what happened and what it means, not just the attack, but everything about it,” he said in a pre-recorded Zoom talk.

“It will be a relatively small book, about 200 pages. It’s not the easiest book in the world to write, but I have to get over it before I can move on to something else. I can’t start a novel that doesn’t have that… So I just have to deal with it.

Rushdie spent six weeks in the hospital after the attack. In addition to partially losing his sight, he also lost the sense of touch in some of his fingers, making typing difficult.

Hadi Matar, accused of assault, is charged with attempted murder.

British, Indian-born, award-winning and prolific, Rushdie is no stranger to threats to his life.

The release of The Satanic Verses 3.5 decades ago brought him to the attention of fanatical Islamists. However, he himself has been moving unprotected around New York in recent years, despite the threats he has received in the past regarding his life, perhaps thinking that these threats are already … forgotten.

Source: Guardian