A review by booksrockcal
Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

This book grabbed me from the moment I started it. It is Salman Rushdie’s memoir about the knife attack against Rushdie by a young man radicalized by you tube in Chautauqua, New York, 23 years after Iran issued the fatwa against Rushdie following publication of the Satanic Verses. Despite living in London for many years under the guard of Scotland Yard, Rushdie moved to NYC in 2000 and had been living without incident until the attack in Chautauqua in which he nearly died and  which left him with a damaged hand and liver and caused him to lose his eye. Ironically Rushdie, a former President of Pen America, was speaking at Chautauqua on the importance of protecting writers and their right to speak. The book chronicles the attack, the response, Rushdie’s recovery supported by his wife Eliza, his sons, and his sister, and the impact on his physical and emotional health. I have never read a Salman Rushdie novel as I am not a big fan of magical realism but I may have to reconsider- he is a gifted storyteller even of his own story and his language is beautiful. I’m going to buy the book so I can write down some of his meditations of art, life, literature, religion, and freedom of speech. The book is a powerful defense of the right of authors to speak without fear of attack (Rushdie was an outspoken defender of the Charlie Hebdo writers/cartoonists) and a tribute to the power of grace, love, and kindness in the healing process.  In one portion of the book Rushdie has an imagined dialogue with his attacker that encapsulates his anger and also his view about the right to speak and write - this was the only part of the book that seemed slightly stilted but I’m still giving it 5 stars for language, readability, and it’s compelling message.  And I read this on audio with Rushdie reading it.