Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder

Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder is Salman Rushdie's searingly honest, courageously written reckoning with the near-fatal attack he survived in August 2022 — when he was stabbed onstage at an event in Chautauqua, New York, in front of a live audience. In this extraordinary memoir, one of literature's greatest living voices confronts violence, mortality, love, and the fragility of human life with remarkable dignity, defiance, and grace.

Rushdie reflects on the year of slow, painful recovery — on the love and devotion of his wife Rachel, on the act of writing itself as both escape and therapy, and on the strange paradox of a writer whose life has been repeatedly threatened because of the power of words, surviving to write about it. He imagines a direct, confrontational dialogue with the man who tried to kill him — asking the questions that may never receive a real answer.

Weaving through ideas of fanaticism, freedom, the sacred importance of storytelling, and the life-giving force of literature, Knife is both a profoundly personal document and a soaring declaration that the creative spirit cannot be extinguished by violence. It is also a love letter — to Rachel, to the craft of writing, and to the indestructible human desire to make meaning in the face of chaos.

Deeply moving, intellectually alive, and written with the full force of Rushdie's extraordinary literary gifts, Knife is an essential book — not just for admirers of Rushdie but for anyone who believes in the irreplaceable value of free expression and the courage it demands.

Product Details

ISBN: 9780670099580
Format: Hardback
Language: English
Author: Salman Rushdie
Publisher: Jonathan Cape
Recommended Age: 18+
Weight: Approx. 400 g
Delivery Time: 5-7 Business Days