Salman Rushdie on Surviving the Fatwa

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 6 February 2023

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Thirty-four years ago, the Ayatollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, issued a fatwa calling for the assassination of the novelist Salman Rushdie, whose book “The Satanic Verses” Khomeini declared blasphemous. It caused a worldwide uproar. Rushdie lived in hiding in London for a decade before moving to New York, where he began to let his guard down. “I had come to feel that it was a very long time ago and, and that the world moves on,” he tells David Remnick. “That’s what I had agreed with myself was the case. And then it wasn’t.” In August of last year, a man named Hadi Matar attacked Rushdie onstage before a public event, stabbing him about a dozen times. Rushdie barely survived. Now, in his first interview since the assassination attempt, Rushdie discusses the long shadow of the fatwa; his recovery from extensive injuries; and his writing. It was “just a piece of fortune, given what happened,” that Rushdie had finished work on a new novel, “Victory City,” weeks before the attack. The book is being published this week. “I’ve always thought that my books are more interesting than my life,” he remarks. “Unfortunately, the world appears to disagree.” David Remnick’s Profile of Rushdie appears in the February 13th & 20th issue of The New Yorker.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:09.5	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.
0:15.9	34 years ago, the Ayatollah Khomeini, then the supreme leader of Iran, declared that a novel called
0:22.6	the Satanic Verses was a blasphemy. He issued a ruling of fatwa, ordering the assassination of its author,
0:29.6	the Indian British novelist Salman Rushdie. After 10 years of fugitive life in London, and then more than 20 years living freely and unguarded in New York City,
0:40.3	history caught up with Rushdie.
0:42.3	And history came in the form of a young man named Hadi Matar, dressed in black and wielding a knife.
0:49.3	Matar attacked Rushdie on a stage in August, stabbing him repeatedly.
0:56.1	Rushdie barely survived.
1:02.0	First, I need to ask how you are.
1:03.1	How are you feeling?
1:04.2	You know, I mean better.
1:10.7	But considering what happened, I'm not so bad.
1:17.9	As you can see, the big injuries are healed, essentially.
1:22.4	This had a knife injury in the middle of it.
1:25.0	Do you have feeling in your left hand?
1:25.8	I have some.
1:31.5	I mean, I have feeling in my thumb and index finger and in the bottom half of the palm.
1:33.3	Can you type?
1:38.4	Not very well because of the lack of feeling in the fingertips.
1:41.7	The big injuries was here.
1:43.7	It's right into your right jaw. Yes, the neck. The neck and up around here. It's right into your right jaw.
	...

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