For the first time since he was nearly killed in a knife attack in the United States last summer, British writer Salman Rushdie says he has trouble writing and is suffering from post-traumatic stress.
The famous novelist of Indian origin, naturalized American and resident in New York, expresses himself in an extensive article published this Monday by the newspaper of cultural elites, the new yorkeron the eve of the US premiere of her latest novel, “Victory City,” the 14th-century “epic story of a woman.”
His exclusive secrets for the editor-in-chief of New Yorkerby writer David Remnick, are titled “Salman Rushdie’s Challenge” and are accompanied by an hour-long audio interview and a grim black-and-white photo of the 75-year-old intellectual, his scarred face and rimmed glasses. a black. lens in the right eye.
Faced with this shot that he described on Twitter as “spectacular and powerful”, Rushdie published another, in color, showing him with the same black glass as the glasses, but looking more peaceful.
partial loss of sight
Literary agent Andrew Wylie revealed in October that he had lost sight in one eye and the use of one hand.
While “Victory City” was completed before his August 12, 2022 assault on the northern United States, Salman Rushdie says he “found it very, very difficult to write.”
“I sit down to write and nothing happens; I write, but it is a mixture of emptiness and nonsense, things that I write and delete the next day,” confesses the writer who has lived since 1989 under the death threat of a fatwa issued by Iran, after the publication of his book “The Satanic Verses”.
“I’m not out of the woods yet,” he breathes, warning his interviewer: “PTSD exists, you know,” using the acronym for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
No public promotion
Even “if his recovery progresses,” his agent told The Guardian newspaper last week, Rushdie will not be doing any public promotion of his 15th novel, which opens in the United States on Tuesday and in the UK on Thursday.
Adored by Western elites, hated by Muslim extremists in Iran or Pakistan – some were delighted by his assault in August – Rushdie is an icon of free speech and still defends power with erudition and his flamboyant style. “.
The book tells the epic of Pampa Kampana, a young orphan girl endowed with magical powers by a goddess, who will create the city of Bisnaga – literally “City of Victory”. With the mission of “giving women an equal place in a patriarchal world,” according to Penguin Random House, its heroine and poet, who will live to be nearly 250 years old, will also witness “the pride of those in power.” , will witness the rise and then the destruction of Bisnaga and suffer exile.
Source: BFM TV
