Salman Rushdie

From internationally renowned writer and Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie, a searing, deeply personal account of enduring—and surviving—an attempt on his life thirty years after the fatwa that was ordered against him Speaking out for the first time, and in unforgettable detail, about the traumatic events of August 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie answers violence with art, and reminds us of the power of words to make sense of the unthinkable. Knife is a gripping, intimate, and ultimately life-affirming meditation on life, loss, love, art—and finding the strength to stand up again.

Meditations After an Attempted Murder

Knife

Aurore

The writer Jodi Picoult says this in her novel My Sister’s Keeper: “If you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.”

I have learned a lot about demonization, that’s true. I know that it is possible to construct an image of a man, a second self, that bears very little resemblance to the first self, but this second self gains credibility because it is repeated over and over again, until it begins to feel real, more real than the first self. I believe it’s this second self that you have gotten to know, against whom your sense of an enemy is aimed. To answer your question, I know I am not that second self. I am myself, and I turn away from hatred, and toward love.

Knife Meditations After an Attempted Murder

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