(TotalConservative.com) – Controversial author Salman Rushdie gave his first interview since his near-fatal stabbing in 2022.
Last year in August, Rushdie was attacked on stage in western New York as he was about to give a lecture. The assailant stabbed Rushdie in the neck and the abdomen before being detained, and Rushdie was quickly flown by helicopter to a nearby hospital where he underwent surgery. The attack left Rushdie with a damaged liver, nerves severed in his arm, and he is now blind in his right eye.
The assailant was Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old man from Fairview, New Jersey, who pled not guilty to attempted murder.
Rushdie seems to be maintaining a positive attitude despite the damage done to him, stating in The New Yorker interview that he’s “tried very hard over these years to avoid recrimination and bitterness,” which he maintains is “not a good look.”
Perhaps he’s used to it by now. The 75-year-old author rose to fame in 1989 when his novel “The Satanic Verses” was labeled blasphemous against Islam by the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran, who issued a fatwa against Rushdie calling for him to be killed. As a result, Rushdie lived in hiding for many years and received more death threats than he can count.
Incidents like what happened to Rushdie continue to raise questions amongst Americans and Westerners in general about how compatible Islamic values are with Western values.
Just a few months ago, an adjunct art history professor was fired for showing a Persian painting of Muhammad; she is now suing her former employers. The problem has been especially apparent in France over the last decade; in 2020, a teacher was decapitated outside of the school where he worked for showing caricatures of Muhammad from the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, whose offices were attacked in 2015 over the depictions.
Although Rushdie is in generally good spirits after almost dying, he’s found it difficult to get back to work writing while still recovering from the incident.
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