Salman Rushdie struggles to write since knife attack left him blind in one eye

06 February 2023 , 22:10

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Sir Salman Rushdie says he suffers nightmares as a result of the 'colossal attack' (Image: Getty Images)

Sir Salman Rushdie has spoken for the first time about the frenzied knife assault that came within ­millimetres of killing him.

The author said the “colossal attack” last year has left him struggling to write again as he recovers from the trauma.

The 75-year-old was left blind in one eye and with severe nerve damage in his left hand after being stabbed on stage at a literary event in New York last August.

He has lost three stone and said he has had nightmares and, while he has “tried very hard not to adopt the role of a victim”, he suffers post-traumatic stress.

He said: “I’ve found it very, very ­difficult to write. I sit down to write, and nothing happens. I write, but it’s a combination of blankness and junk, stuff that I write and that I delete the next day. I’m not out of that forest yet, really.”

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The scene as the author is tended to in the aftermath of the attack last year (AP)

Sir Salman detailed his recovery in an interview with the New Yorker magazine ahead of the launch of his new book, Victory City, written before the attack.

He said he has spent the past seven months at his New York home, watching “crap television”.

He added: “The big injuries are healed, essentially. I’m doing a lot of hand therapy, and I’m told I’m doing very well.

“There have been nightmares. Not exactly the incident, but just frightening. Those seem to be diminishing. I’m fine. I’m able to get up and walk around. When I say I’m fine, I mean there are bits of my body that need constant checkups. It was a colossal attack.”

The author says he is struggling to write because of the attack

The Booker Prize winner, whose 1988 novel The Satanic Verses led to a fatwa calling for his death, joked that the attack has made him more popular.

He said: “Now that I’ve almost died, everybody loves me. That was my mistake back then. Not only did I live, but I tried to live well. Bad mistake. Get 15 stab wounds, much better.”

Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, New Jersey, has been charged with second-degree attempted murder and second-degree assault, which he denies, and will likely be tried next year. He has reportedly refused to say if the fatwa by late Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini led to the attack.

Asked about his attacker, Sir Salman called him “an idiot”.

Christopher Bucktin