pomoevareads 's review for:

Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie
4.0
adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective medium-paced
A powerful memoir of an event that altered writer Salman Rushdie’s life forever, Knife: Meditations After An Attempted Murder is a journey from the event itself to the closing of a circle.

On August 12, 2022 in Chautauqua, New York, Rushdie was taking the stage to speak about keeping writers safe from harm. A rather ironic moment if one had foresight. Out of the audience came a young man with a knife. He stabbed Rushdie many times almost killing him. Rushdie would survive but lose an eye. 

in Knife, the author relives the ordeal, his rehabilitation and current life. He reminisces of his earlier life and speaks of the support of his wife Eliza and of the medical professionals who cared for him. He does not name the offender, giving him the moniker ‘The A.’

For the most part Rushdie writes from a place of recovery and thoughtfulness, sometimes with a looking glass quality such as in an imagined conversation with ‘The A.’ He gives much credit to Eliza and his family for him having the fortitude to break through walls of pain to heal.

Many references are made to other writers and their work, some of whom I have heard of and some of whom I haven’t. The writing is highly intellectual with profound sentences. 

Overall, I was glad to have read this memoir and found myself with tears in my eyes at the ending but with a sense of clarity as well. 
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