Months after being stabbed repeatedly as he prepared to deliver a lecture, Salman Rushdie is blind in his right eye, struggles to write and at times has “frightening” nightmares
Rushdie was on stage when approached by a young man dressed in black and carrying a knife. Thehas pleaded not guilty to charges of assault and attempted murder. During his New Yorker interview, Rushdie referred to Matar as an"idiot," but otherwise said he felt no anger.
The interview came out on the eve of the publication of Rushdie's new novel, “Victory City,” which he completed a month before he was attacked. Featuring a protagonist who lives to be 247, “Victory” is a characteristically surreal and exuberant narrative about an imagined ancient poem that has received highly favorable reviews, with The Washington Post's Ron Charles writing that “Rushdie’s magical style unfurls wonders.
During his interview, he noted ruefully that sales for his book had soared after the stabbing, as if he were more popular when in danger. He is otherwise still trying to recover. Rushdie has written that he initially had difficulty writing fiction after the fatwa, and he is having a hard time now, saying that he will sit down to work and “nothing happens," just a “combination of blankness and junk.”which he wrote in the third person.