Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder

In 2022, Salman Rushdie was about to give a public talk when an attacker rushed the stage and stabbed him nearly to death. Though he lost an eye in the process, Rushdie recovered. Knife is the culmination of that recovery. In it, Rushdie offers an unnervingly frank and measured account of the attack and the debilitating effect that it had on his life. The book is more than that, however. Rushdie, who has faced death threats for more than three decades, explores the perils – from censorship to violence – that writers increasingly face. He confronts the controversy and caricature (be it that of a hedonist or an egoist) long attached to his name. And yet, his message is fundamentally an optimistic one. He seeks to understand what happened to him, he expresses gratitude to all who stood by and supported him (especially his wife, Eliza), and he maintains a sharp sense of humor throughout. Despite the book’s power, Knife is nearly undone by one sizeable creative blunder: a self-indulgent series of imagined conversations between Rushdie and his would-be assassin goes on entirely too long. There are other irksome bits here (humble Rushdie is not), but overall, Knife’s vitality and humanity make it a worthwhile read.