Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder

Published in 2024, Salman Rushdie’s memoir Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder recounts the 2022 attack that nearly took his life. The book follows Rushdie’s physical and psychological recovery and expresses his gratitude to those who supported him through it—particularly his wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths. The young man who attacked him was moved to violence by fundamentalist Islamic propaganda, partially regarding one of Rushdie’s own novels. Knife reasserts Rushdie’s staunch advocation of free speech, defending his and others’ right to speak out against institutions such as religion.

This study guide refers to the 2024 first US edition, published by Random House.

Content Warning: This study guide includes descriptions of violence and both physical and emotional trauma.

Summary

In 2022, Salman Rushdie was invited to speak at the Chautauqua Institution. After a nightmare about being stabbed, he was reluctant but felt obligated to honor his commitment. On August 12, 2022, a large audience gathered at the long-standing summer retreat to hear him and Henry Reese lecture—ironically, about the City of Asylum Pittsburgh Project, part of an effort to establish safe refuge for writers whose work puts them in danger. After Rushdie walked out, 24-year-old Hadi Matar—referred to in Knife only as “the A.”—rushed onto the stage and stabbed him repeatedly. Frozen in shock, Rushdie did not run or even try to meaningfully defend himself. Reese and several audience members subdued the attacker. Other audience members provided first aid, keeping Rushdie alive until first responders arrived. Filled with loneliness and grief for loved ones he thought he would never see again, he was airlifted to UPMC Hamot, a trauma center in Erie, Pennsylvania, and was rushed into surgery because of his severe injuries.

Five years earlier, Rushdie met writer Rachel Eliza Griffiths at the PEN America World Voices Festival. At an after-party that evening, he saw her again and felt drawn to her. As they moved out onto the terrace to talk, he walked into a glass door and fell; his injuries were minor, but he decided to go home. Eliza rode in the cab with him to ensure that he got home safely. He invited her in, and they talked all night. Their relationship developed quickly. Eliza was unaccustomed to the public spotlight, so they kept the relationship fairly private and avoided social media. Marrying in September 2021, they spent a month in Italy in 2022. Back in the US, they resumed their work routines and planned trips to see family, which did not materialize: After learning of the attack, Eliza rushed to the hospital. Rushdie was miserable. On a ventilator, he was unable to speak and struggled to sleep; the strong pain medications caused hallucinations; and his wounds required frequent, painful intervention. However, Eliza’s love and reassurance comforted him, as did visits from family and friends. Messages of support from around the world cheered him, though as an atheist he did not know what to make of some people’s claim that a higher power was at work in his survival. He and Eliza began documenting everything on video and audio recordings. Rushdie found the loss of vision in his right eye hardest to accept. Determined to recover from his other injuries, he made a little progress each day, which lifted his spirits. After 18 days, Rushdie was discharged to Rusk Rehabilitation in New York City.

Although pleased to be back in the city he loved, Rushdie felt imprisoned in the rehab center. His son Milan visited from London; Milan and Eliza staggered their visits so that Rushdie had company from the time he finished therapy until he went to bed. During his sleepless nights, he thought about the knife as a neutral technology, only good or bad depending on the wielder’s intentions. He began to see language as a kind of knife too and decided to wield it to reshape and reframe his experiences as a way of fighting back. His agent, Andrew Wylie, visited him and suggested that he write a book about the attack; Rushdie doubted that he would want to do so, but Wylie was sure he would. Rushdie reflected on his identity and the life experiences that shaped him, including the violent international controversy over The Satanic Verses that forced him to go into hiding and move from London to New York. Even after the attack, Rushdie—a great proponent of free speech—did not regret writing The Satanic Verses.

On September 26, Rusk released Rushdie. Concerned about safety, he and Eliza hired a security team and temporarily moved to a friend’s vacant SoHo loft. Rushdie was elated to leave rehab and see Manhattan. A physical therapist regularly visited the loft to rehabilitate his hand. After many painful months, Rushdie regained motion and most of the sensation in the hand. At one of many follow-up medical appointments, a doctor suspected he might have prostate cancer, but this proved false. Instead of having his damaged eye removed or covered with a prosthetic, Rushdie opted to wait to see if either would be necessary. A severed nerve in his neck caused irreversible partial paralysis of his mouth. On November 4, Rushdie joyfully returned home and began socializing. Seeing his dear friend Martin Amis twice was especially meaningful; Amis had long battled cancer and soon died. Rushdie began writing Knife, and he and Eliza resolved to pursue a film about the attack and its aftermath. The book he submitted just before the attack, Victory City, was published in February 2023, and he gave an interview to The New Yorker to promote it. On Valentine’s Day, the 34th anniversary of Khomeini’s edict calling for Rushdie’s death, he and Eliza celebrated, going out to eat for the first time in six months.

Rushdie laments that the Islamic fundamentalists who killed Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz in 1994 were supposedly motivated by his public support of Rushdie. He wondered then what kind of person could stab an 80-year-old man; in retrospect, he ruminates about his own attacker’s reasoning. In an imagined dialogue, he explores the attacker’s public comment that Rushdie was “disingenuous” and asks how he became radicalized; “the A.” attributes his religious beliefs to YouTube videos. Rushdie observes that “the A.” canceled his gym membership before traveling to Chautauqua to stab him, suggesting that he knew he could not return to his old life; “the A.” says he willingly made this sacrifice to serve God. Rushdie critiques the man’s idea of God, asking probing questions to demonstrate that religious faith is a delusion. Rushdie casts himself as unfairly demonized, noting that he promotes love, not hate, has portrayed Muslims sympathetically through several characters, and argued in favor of a controversial mosque at the World Trade Center site. He points out that if a death edict is carried out and then found erroneous, rectifying it is impossible. He portrays the would-be assassin as confused, lonely, and living in a fantasy world. Rushdie asserts that challenging orthodoxies is a central function of art, making it necessary, and that art outlasts efforts to silence it.

In the wake of the attack, Rushdie saw life as a kind of second chance and focused on the present. Victory City was well-received by critics, and Rushdie was grateful that fellow writers covered his publicity events since he was not well enough. Writing Knife was cathartic: It let him own his experience. Even so, both he and Eliza still struggled with the attack’s psychological impact. Briefly reactivating his Twitter (X) account, Rushdie saw Islamic fundamentalists’ negative comments about him. He recalls a 2022 speech he gave that explored writers’ responsibility to tell the truth as they see it (especially since the world seems divided into two camps that see reality in conflicting ways). He still believes he has that responsibility but now refuses to engage in debates about religion. He explains why he is an atheist and why his beliefs will not change.

Rushdie’s initial desire to confront his attacker in court faded because of delays in bringing the man to trial. Although anxious to see that the man stayed in jail as long as possible, Rushdie wanted more than anything to return to his work and family life. He still struggled to accept the loss of vision in one eye but found resolve in realizing that others lived with similar injuries yet thrived. Although the attack changed him in some ways, Rushdie asserts that his writing will not change; he hopes that the notoriety of the attack will not change how people read it or, worse, eclipse interest in his writing. Thirteen months after the attack, Rushdie returned to Chautauqua with Eliza and stood where he was stabbed. He suddenly felt lighter and more at peace, knowing that his relationship with Eliza had survived and they could look forward to happier times.