What Really Happened During the 27 Seconds That Nearly Ended Salman Rushdie’s Life?

Is Free Speech Dying? Why Does Salman Rushdie Warn Against Both Right-Wing Censorship and ‘Cancel Culture’?

Listen to Salman Rushdie’s candid CBC interview about the 2022 knife attack that inspired his memoir Knife. Discover how he survived the 27-second assault, his thoughts on the attacker he never met, and his powerful defense of free speech against both political censorship and modern cancel culture.

Don’t take your freedom for granted—read the full summary below to hear Rushdie’s urgent warning about why we must defend the right to disagree before it’s too late.

Recommendation

In this engaging interview on Canada’s CBC network, esteemed author Salman Rushdie recounts the event in August 2022 that almost ended his life and inspired his second memoir, Knife: Meditations on an Attempted Murder. Having endured decades under the fatwa that put his life at risk from Islamic extremists, this latest attack reminded Rushdie that he remains a controversial figure. With his usual candor and wit, Rushdie defends the right to freedom of speech in literature, the arts, and civic life. As the survivor of a deadly assault, Salman Rushdie understands that a second chance “gives you an instruction not to waste your time.”

Take-Aways

• The 2022 attack that almost killed Salman Rushdie stemmed from Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa which condemned him to death in 1989.
• Rushdie dedicated his most recent book, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, to the people who saved his life.
• Rushdie passionately defends freedom of speech and criticizes social media’s cancel culture.
• Civil society calls on people to be capable of respectfully disagreeing.

Summary

The 2022 attack that almost killed Salman Rushdie stemmed from Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa which condemned him to death in 1989.

In August 2022, during his speech in upstate New York about protecting writers, Salman Rushdie suffered a savage physical attack. A young man jumped onstage and severely wounded Rushdie with a knife. The young man, Rushdie says, had spent too much time on social media.

“I didn’t want to 2022 write it, but at the point at which it became clear to me that I had to write it because I couldn’t really focus on anything else, it seemed foolish to think about something else.”

In 1989, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against the author in condemnation of Rushdie’s fifth book, The Satanic Verses. For years, Rushdie lived a fugitive existence, hiding under police protection.

Rushdie found writing Knife difficult because the opening chapter describes the attack. He wasn’t sure he wanted to draw attention to his personal life. He feared it might risk obscuring his literary accomplishments.

Rushdie dedicated his most recent book, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, to the people who saved his life.

Rushdie recalls coming close to death and expresses his gratitude to the members of the audience who tackled the attacker and saved Rushdie’s life. In the 27 seconds he was under attack, Rushdie was certain he would die and felt sad because he was dying among strangers such a long way from his home. Those strangers were his rescuers, and when he received the PEN America award for courage, Rushdie accepted the honor on their behalf.

“If it were not for those people, I don’t know their names, I wouldn’t recognize them if they walked in the room, but their altruism, their selflessness, is what saved my life.”

Rushdie wanted to meet his attacker and find out what motivated him. His wife counseled against it, and Rushdie could not gain access to the man, regardless. He knew he wouldn’t get a satisfactory answer anyway; he was certain his attacker would spout ideological nonsense. Rushdie knows for certain that the man had not read any of his books. Likewise, the Ayatollah did not read The Satanic Verses before condemning Rushdie to death.

Rushdie passionately defends freedom of speech and criticizes social media’s cancel culture.

When CBC interviewer Matt Galloway moderated a panel in Toronto called “Freedom to Read, Freedom to Write” in 1989, the participants observed that fatwas encourage authors to grapple with free speech.Rushdie felt disappointed to learn that participants in more recent discussions on free speech talked about censoring certain speech if they dislike its content.

“If you are unable to defend the free speech of people that you really dislike, then you don’t believe in free speech.”

People who live under authoritarian rule understand the dangers of limiting speech. Often, people don’t recognize the importance of free speech until they cannot speak freely. In countries that honor free speech, some individuals and groups want to silence points of view they find disagreeable. Rushdie believes free speech is under attack from all sides, including from right-wing conservatives who want, for example, to keep Toni Morrison’s books out of libraries and from left-wing progressives who seek to cancel those who don’t honor what Rushdie calls “the sacred cow of the week.”

Civil society calls on people to be capable of respectfully disagreeing.

Salman Rushdie founded the PEN World Festival after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, DC. He encouraged authors of many different views to join and tried to create a public space for discussions on civility. In Rushdie’s view, PEN is an important US literary organization that does excellent work worldwide. However, several members pulled out of the 2024 festival because they felt PEN World wasn’t sufficiently supportive of “Palestinian writers.” When Rushdie wrote a letter encouraging all “voices,” opponents condemned him.

“I have this fantasy of sitting under a tree by a river with a notepad writing and not giving a damn about anything else.”

Rushdie believes civilized society relies on individuals having the right to different opinions and being able to respectfully disagree. Having almost died two years ago and now having survived a long recuperation, he wishes he could be content to write only about pleasant subjects, but he’s doubtful he could manage that. Rushdie’s not as strong as he once was, though he prides himself on his postattack resilience. While he may no longer write 500-page books, he is still prolific, and he advises others not to waste time and to savor the life they have remaining.

About the Podcast

The Current is a public affairs radio program on Canada’s CBC. Host Matt Galloway interviews the people who shape politics, the arts, and civic life.