Salman Rushdie, who was stabbed last year at a literary event in New York, gave his first interview to the American magazine The New Yorker, in which he said he was thankful that he had survived the attack.
“I’m lucky,” Rushdie said in the interview. “What I mean is that the most important feeling is gratitude.”
Writer Salman Rushdie was stabbed in the neck and torso while speaking on stage at a literary event on 12 August 2022. Rushdie spent six weeks in hospital losing the sight in one of his eyes and the movement of one of his hands .
In 1989, the ayatollah Khomeini gave one fatwa about the writer through the work The Satanic Verses. Hadi Matar, 24, was arrested shortly after the attack and pleaded not guilty at a New York state hearing.
Rushdie said he blamed Hadi Matar alone for the stabbing. The writer did not blame the organizers of the event. “I’ve tried very hard over the years to avoid accusations and bitterness,” said Rushdie. “One of the ways I handled all of this was to look forward and not backward. What happens tomorrow is more important than what happened yesterday.”
During the interview, he also thanked the authorities who saved his life. “At some point I’d like to go there and say thank you.”
This interview was published two days before the publication of Salman Rushdie’s new book, victory city. The writer’s agent, Andrew Wylie, has already announced that Rushdie “will not be appearing publicly to promote his forthcoming novel” as he continues to recover from the stabbing.
Source: DN
