A little over six months ago, on August 12, as writer Salman Rushdie waited to deliver a lecture on the importance of the United States offering asylum to artistes in exile at New York’s Chautauqua Institution, a commotion broke out in the aisles.
A young man clad in black had made his way on to the stage, and before anybody could react, had stabbed the 75-year-old repeatedly.
It was the threat that had foreshadowed Rushdie’s life and career for over three decades since the publication of ‘The Satanic Verses‘ (1988) and the issuance of the infamous fatwa by Iran’s religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini in February 1989 for insulting Islam in the novel. Now, it seemed to have made good on its sinister promise.
But there’s something about Rushdie that spells insouciance and dig-one’s-heels-in resilience. Six months later, Rushdie is back with a new novel, ‘Victory City‘ (Jonathan Cape), and with his spirits intact. In an extensive piece in The New Yorker magazine, for which the writer spoke to its editor David Remnick, new details have emerged about the attempted assassination and its aftermath.
Here are some highlights from Remnick’s article in The New Yorker:
* Hadi Matar, Rushdie’s 24-year-old assailant of Lebanese origin, had read about the event at Chautauqua Institution on Twitter. A visit to his estranged father in Lebanon in 2018 had not improved their relationship. Instead, Matar had returned to his mother and twin sisters back at New Jersey, disgruntled.
Back in the US, he became withdrawn and religious, unable to keep a job and disinclined to venture out of his basement room. If he did go out, it was only to a gym to train. Even there, he kept his distance, before dropping his membership altogether.
A day before the attack, he took a bus and then a rental car to the venue, walking around and getting a feel of the place. That night, he slept under the stars.
* At the event, Rushdie was on stage with long-time friend Henry Reese, co-founder of City of Asylum, a non-governmental organisation in Pittsburgh, that offers assistance to writers in exile. When Matar attacked the writer, it would be Reese who would be Rushdie’s first point of defence. He threw himself at Matar, tackling him from the back and holding on to his legs, despite being stabbed himself.
According to The New Yorker article, Reese’s action possibly saved Rushdie’s life.
* Remnick’s article details the valiant efforts put in by doctors in the audience — an anaesthesiologist, a radiologist, an internist and an obstetrician — and a fireman to stanch the bleeding from Rushdie’s stab wounds. He had been stabbed in the neck and face, on his left hand, abdomen, and under the rib cage.
After their timely intervention, the EMTS arrived and arranged for Rushdie to be airlifted to a Level 2 trauma centre, part of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, in Pennsylvania. Rushdie was in hospital for six weeks.
* When Remnick met him in December 2022 at his agent Andrew Wylie’s office, Rushdie had lost more than 18 kg, and bore the scars of the attack on his face and body. He has lost vision in his right eye, scar tissues cover the right side of his face, and the damage in his left hand continues to make writing difficult. Sleep has been elusive, nightmares puncturing his hours of rest, and he has been in therapy, trying to unpack what the attack has done to him.
But in that meeting with Remnick and in consequent ones, Rushdie showed a disinclination to speak of the attack, even if he confessed to PTSD.
* Remnick details Rushdie’s valiant refusal to be a “victim”; his plan to write a first-person sequel to his spectacular third-person memoir, ‘Joseph Anton’ (2012); his hope that his new book, ‘Victory City’, be read on merit rather than as a pity project; his gratitude to his family, friends, fellow writers, and well-wishers who checked on him, who worked to save him. “It’s very nice that everybody was so moved by this, you know?” he tells Remnick, “I had never thought about how people would react if I was assassinated, or almost assassinated.”
* Matar, who has pleaded not guilty, is lodged in Chautauqua County Jail, charged with attempted murder in the second degree and assault in the second degree, both of which could together see a sentence of over 30 years.
While the reason behind his attack remains unknown, public defender Nathaniel Barone, who is representing him, has told Remnick that his client is cooperative and respectful and not taking this lightly. In jail, Matar spends his time reading the Quran. The case is unlikely to come up for hearing before next year.
When asked, Rushdie had one thing to say for Matar — he called him an “idiot”: “I don’t know what I think of him, because I don’t know him,” he tells Remnick.
