NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� has a memoir coming out about the that left him blind in his right eye and with a damaged left hand. 鈥淜nife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder鈥� will be published April 16.
鈥淭his was a necessary book for me to write: a way to take charge of what happened, and to answer violence with art,鈥� Rushdie said in a statement released Wednesday by Penguin Random House.
Last August, Rushdie was stabbed repeatedly in the neck and abdomen by a man who rushed the stage as the author was about to give a lecture in western New York. The has pleaded not guilty to
For some time after calling for Rushdie's death over alleged blasphemy in his novel 鈥淭he Satanic Verses,鈥� the writer lived in isolation and with round-the-clock security. But for years since, he had moved about with few restrictions, until the stabbing
The 256-page 鈥淜nife" will be published in the U.S. by Random House, the Penguin Random House imprint that earlier this year released completed before the attack. His other works include the Booker Prize-winning 鈥淢idnight's Children,鈥� 鈥淪hame" and 鈥淭he Moor's Last Sigh.鈥� Rushdie is also a prominent and a former president
鈥�'Knife' is a searing book, and a reminder of the power of words to make sense of the unthinkable," Penguin Random House CEO said in a statement. 鈥淲e are honored to publish it, and amazed at Salman鈥檚 determination to tell his story, and to return to the work he loves.鈥�
Rushdie, 76, did speak about his ordeal, telling interviewer David Remnick for a February issue that he had worked hard to avoid 鈥渞ecrimination and bitterness鈥� and was determined to 鈥渓ook forward and not backwards.鈥�
He had also said that he was struggling to write fiction, as he did in the years immediately following the fatwa, and that he might instead write a memoir. Rushdie wrote at length, and in the third person, about the fatwa in his 2012 memoir 鈥淛oseph Anton.鈥�
鈥淭his doesn鈥檛 feel third-person-ish to me,鈥� Rushdie said of the 2022 attack in the magazine interview. 鈥淚 think when somebody sticks a knife into you, that鈥檚 a first-person story. That鈥檚 an 鈥業鈥� story.鈥�
Hillel Italie, The Associated Press
