Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder

In 2022, novelist Rushdie (Victory City) was stabbed multiple times by a man he only refers to as “the A” in this account of what unfolded after those 27 seconds. Listeners will learn of Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1989 fatwa against Rushdie as he describes undergoing several surgeries to save his life, extract the remains of one eye, and recover use of his left hand. Having endured rehab and the indignity of critics intruding into his career and personal life, Rushdie movingly describes the steps he took to leave physical and professional injuries behind. Immediate family, colleagues, and friends supply anecdotes about Rushdie’s return to a literary life and his would-be assassin’s fate. A 2023 visit back to the stage where he nearly died finds the prolific author changed but very much alive and still driven to tackle substantive issues and fight to ensure that writers will not be silenced.