Rushdie at the cutting edge

I began my review of Victory City thus: "Rejoice, for Salman Rushdie,.

- SHREEKANT SAMBRANI

I began my review of Victory City thus: "Rejoice, for Salman Rushdie,...is back, at the peak of his form" (Business Standard, February 25, 2023). I must use the same exhortation to cheer at the start of this review of his latest book, this time a memoir, with an even greater emphasis, for we very nearly lost Rushdie shortly after he turned in the Victory City manuscript. A young man with a knife attacked him on the stage at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York on August 12, 2022. That encounter lasted 27 second. Rushdie suffered grievous wounds on his chest, arms, face, and left eye.

Miraculously, he survived and spent several months in recovery. His attacker was arrested and is awaiting trial.

Knife is Rushdie's graphic account of the attack and his recovery interlaced with the love story of Rushdie and his current wife, Rachel Eliza Griffith, an American poet/photographer, whose love for him, he says, urged him "Live. Live." It covers his meditations on life, arts, violence, religion and, above all, love.