Salman Rushdie's memoir 'Knife' recounts his attack and recovery

NPR's Book of the Day

NPR

Arts, Books

4.2 • 671 Ratings

🗓️ 26 April 2024

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 2022, the author Salman Rushdie was onstage at a public event when a man ran up and stabbed him. His new memoir, Knife, delves into that moment when Rushdie thought he was going to die — and everything that's come after, as he's healed from the attack. In today's episode, he speaks at length with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly about how the miracles found in his fiction might've manifested themselves in his real life, how his wife – poet Rachel Eliza Griffiths – has helped him move forward, and how writing about that experience became a way for him to fight back.

To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. A big name author on the pod means
0:06.9	I don't got to do much heavy lifting. You know who Salman Rushdie is, right? He wrote Midnight's
0:11.9	Children, The Satanic Verses, more recently, Victory City. You also likely know that he was attacked,
0:17.8	stabbed on stage in 2022. He's kept pretty low-key since the attack, you know, low-key for Rushdie, but now he's
0:25.8	ready to talk.
0:26.7	His new memoir recounting that event and what his life has been like since is titled
0:31.0	Knife.
0:31.9	And he talked to NPR's mayor, Louis Kelly, about not just the attack, but surviving and
0:36.8	where this whole ordeal has left him spiritually.
0:40.3	That's ahead.
0:41.7	In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.
0:46.5	Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, sources and methods.
0:53.1	NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people,
0:56.8	helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.
1:00.4	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:06.4	Salman Rushdie is a writer, a storyteller.
1:09.8	So when you ask him to tell the story of the day in 2022,
1:14.7	when he was attacked and nearly killed by a young man with a knife,
1:19.2	Rastey paints a vivid picture.
1:21.5	I saw this man rise out of the audience.
1:24.5	You're at the lectern at this point.
1:25.9	You stepped on the stage.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.