Salman Rushdie returned to Italy for the first time after the attack he suffered on 12 August 2022. The occasion was that of the 2024 Book Fair, where the writer of Iranian origin will present his book ‘Knife. Meditations after an attempted assassination’, published by Mondadori, together with Roberto Saviano. The work recounts his terrible experience during the attack in New York in which he lost an eye and the functionality of a hand. During the press conference ahead of the event, Rushdie responded to a question about the ongoing dispute between Saviano, who is a friend of his, and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. “At my personal risk I have to say that politicians should get a little thicker skin because a politician nowadays in addition to having great power also has a lot of authority,” he said. “So it’s normal for someone in the population to talk about it directly, perhaps badly, even using a bad word like the one Roberto used. I would give this lady advice to be less childish and to grow up.”
“Take into account the narrative that is made of conflicts”
The writer then focused on highly topical issues, such as those on ongoing conflicts. “It’s not a question of talking about winners or who is losing. Nothing is over, in fact everything is happening right now. So rather the time has come to take into consideration the narrative that is created about conflicts.” Speaking about the ongoing war in Ukraine, he explained: “There is a Russian leader who says that Ukrainians are Nazis and there are quite a number of Russians who believe these claims. The Ukrainians’ account is the opposite, here because they make war on each other.” On tensions in the Middle East, however, he spoke of a “narration of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians” which “is based very much on passion, there are two opposing forces that are fighting for the same piece of land. It all lies in the possibility of reconciliation in the narrative, so that this effort does not lead to war, because otherwise there will be a war that will never end.”
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Salman Rushdie reappears in public for the first time since the attack
“My voice resonates louder after the attack”
Rushdie then reflected on the attack he suffered two years ago: “Of course I would have preferred not to have been stabbed 15 times. I would say that in general the attack I was the victim of, like all murders, was perpetrated to silence my voice. But my voice, paradoxically, after this act, resonates louder. There is much more interest in what I say and write.” Speaking of his return to Italy, the writer said that “it means a further victory. We were here shortly before the attack. This return of mine to Italy now is a bit of a closing of the circle”, explaining that “after the attack I had to find a way to go back to working as before. Six months passed, I didn’t know what to do, it was a very hard and negative period then I went back to writing like a switch suddenly went off.” Then he continued: “I have some experience, I’ve been writing books for 50 years, this helped lift my spirits and got me back to work.
“I want to go on living my life”
During the press conference they also talked about the past, other assassination attempts and death threats, including the now famous fatwa issued by Khomeini calling for his death. “Certainly one thing I am convinced of is that I am able to manage this situation – the writer continued – because I have been the subject of threats for 35 years, I know how to deal with a situation like this. We need to be more cautious, but pay attention does not mean being afraid. I don’t want something like this to happen again, but I want to go on living my life normally.” Rushdie later said that he wrote the book “to regain the strength they wanted to take away from me”.
