Three years after a brutal attack nearly claimed his life, Salman Rushdie is confronting his past and sharing his story with a raw, unflinching honesty. The premiere of “Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie” at the Sundance Film Festival marks a pivotal moment, not just for the author, but for a world grappling with escalating extremism.
Rushdie, now 78, explained his decision to participate in the film stemmed from a conviction that the attack represented something larger than his personal ordeal. He felt compelled to reveal the stark reality of a terrorist act, to show the world what it looks and feels like in its terrifying immediacy.
The 2022 stabbing left Rushdie with devastating physical wounds – the loss of sight in one eye and lasting damage to a hand. Yet, he made a deliberate choice to shield his creative spirit from the trauma. He refused to allow fear or vengeance to dictate his future work, determined to continue the path he was already on.
Looking back over the past three years, Rushdie expresses a profound sense of disquiet about the current global landscape. He sees a disturbing surge in radicalism, bluntly characterizing the modern world as spiraling into chaos, a place where meaningful dialogue feels increasingly impossible.
The attack, he reflects, exposed a stark duality within humanity. He witnessed the depths of cruelty – violence fueled by ignorance and reckless irresponsibility – alongside extraordinary acts of courage. He specifically remembers the audience members who immediately intervened, becoming the first line of defense in his survival.
The assault occurred on stage at the Chautauqua Institution in August 2022, just moments before he was to deliver a lecture. Rushed to a hospital in Pennsylvania, he underwent emergency surgery to repair a damaged liver and severed nerves in his arm and eye. The injuries ultimately resulted in the permanent loss of function in one eye.
Hadi Matar, the 27-year-old attacker, received a 25-year prison sentence in May 2025 – the maximum penalty allowed. Rushdie describes the 27-second attack as a jarring experience, a sensation of being pulled backward through time.
He vividly recalls the attacker – a figure in black, running low and fast, a “squat missile” – and admits to a strange sense of recognition. He had, in his own mind, long imagined such a confrontation, a moment where his decades-old pursuer would finally materialize. His initial thought was simply, “So, it’s you. Here you are.”
Despite the enduring physical and emotional scars, Rushdie remains resolute in his commitment to his craft. He believes that the fear dictators and tyrants harbor towards writers and poets reveals a fundamental truth: words possess a power that rivals armies and weapons.
He points to historical examples – Franco’s fear of Lorca, Caesar Augustus’s apprehension of Ovid – to illustrate this point. Writers, artists, and journalists challenge the control of narratives, and that, he argues, is what makes them so dangerous to those who seek absolute power.
