Salman and the sea of stories

Salman Rushdie was attacked just before delivering a lecture in New York, on August 12, 2022.

A highly awarded writer in a First World country gets stabbed by a stranger while stepping on to the stage to give a talk. The public nature of the place and the boldly open assault retell a modern-day "fairy tale" where a fatwa from once upon a time is evoked suddenly on a whim one dark night. Free speech is a dragon to be slayed or the knight in shining armour – the debate obviously continues to rage in some minds. When Salman Rushdie was attacked just before delivering a lecture in New York, it brought all pedantic debates on freedom of expression to an abrupt halt.

Over three decades after a fatwa was issued against Rushdie by Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini for writing The Satanic Verses, the whole matter had just about gradually receded into being a nightmare from the past. Till this fresh and gory attack. The book’s Japanese translator Hitoshi Igarashi was killed in 1991, and Rushdie wrote a third-person memoir based on his days on the run, Joseph Anton, which was published in 2012. The Satanic Verses did not just turn his life into a cloak and dagger affair, but changed the trajectory of his life in ways no one can analyse or enumerate.

A March 1989 demonstration in the Netherlands. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)

Reports say that at the very least the recent assault has damaged his liver, eye and arm nerves. The 75-year-old author’s son, Zafar Rushdie, has said that while his father remains in critical condition in a hospital and is receiving extensive ongoing medical treatment, ‘his usual feisty and defiant sense of humour remains intact’.

Attacker Hadi Matar, 24, who was arrested immediately after he attacked the author, has been charged with second-degree attempted murder and assault. He also admits to having read only the first two pages of The Satanic Verses. He has since denied any links to Iran and said he acted alone. ‘When I heard he survived, I was surprised, I guess,’ he said in an interview from the Chautauqua County Jail. Denied bail, Matar pleaded not guilty in court.

The book, buoyed by this latest headline, is back in the news and has expectedly risen in bestseller lists across the world, with the attack on the author bringing renewed interest and curiosity regarding the book. While the world grapples with the meaning and nuance of what just happened, Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan has called the attack unjustifiable.

Yes, Rushdie wrote the book, but now is the book writing Rushdie’s story? From the time it provoked the fatwa, the novel and the author have been keeping each other in the spotlight one way or the other. The book and the author seem in many ways to be each other’s fate.