On August 12, 2022, British author Salman Rushdie was ready to give a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in New York when a man suddenly attacked him with a knife on the stage. The award-winning novelist was severely injured with wounds to his neck and torso and subsequently lost vision in one eye.
Over six months after the terrifying incident, Rushdie has taken to twitter to share a photo of himself. He wrote, “The photo in @NewYorker is dramatic and powerful but this, more prosaically, is what I actually look like. 😊”

However, the picture had been abruptly deleted from the social media platform, which prompted the author to share it again.
Recently, Rushdie broke silence about the brutal stabbing in an interview with The New Yorker. He told David Remnick that he was “lucky… my main overwhelming feeling is gratitude”.

Talking about his current state, he says, “There is such a thing as PTSD, you know.”

“The big injuries are healed, essentially. I have feeling in my thumb and index finger and in the bottom half of the palm. I’m doing a lot of hand therapy, and I’m told that I’m doing very well,” she shares.

After what the Indian-origin author describes as a ‘colossal attack’, he also reveals that he has found it ‘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,” he added.

However, he shares, “I’ve always tried very hard not to adopt the role of a victim.”

“Then you’re just sitting there saying, Somebody stuck a knife in me! Poor me…Which I do sometimes think,” he added.

Remnick asks Rushdie whether he thought it was a mistake to let his guard down.

“I’m asking myself that question, and I don’t know the answer to it,” he responded.

“Three-quarters of my life as a writer has happened since the fatwa. In a way, you can’t regret your life.”

Rushdie’s new novel, Victory City, was launched on Tuesday, 7 February.