Salman Rushdie to publish first fiction book since stabbing
British-American novelist Salman Rushdie will publish his first major work of fiction since the brutal stabbing that blinded him in one eye, his publisher said on Thursday.
'The Eleventh Hour,' is a collection of short stories examining themes and places of interest to Rushdie who narrowly escaped death during the 2022 attack. It will be released on November 4, 2025,
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The would-be assassin, Hadi Matar, was convicted of attempted murder at a trial in upstate New York at which Rushdie gave vivid testimony about the incident.
"The three novellas in this volume, all written in the last twelve months, explore themes and places that have been much on my mind -- mortality, Bombay, farewells, England (especially Cambridge), anger, peace, America," he said in a statement released by Penguin publishing.
I'm happy that the stories, very different from one another in setting, story and technique, nevertheless manage to be in conversation with one another, and with the two stories that serve as prologue and epilogue to this threesome.
During the trial of Rushdie's attacker, Matar's legal team sought to prevent witnesses from characterizing Rushdie as a victim of persecution following Iran's 1989 fatwa calling for his murder over supposed blasphemy in 'The Satanic Verses.'
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Rushdie told jurors of Matar "stabbing and slashing" him during an event at an upscale cultural center in rural New York.
Matar was found guilty of stabbing Rushdie about 10 times with a six-inch blade that was shown to witnesses and the court.
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At the trial, Rushdie discussed his book 'Knife' which he wrote after the attack, describing the violent attempt on his life and his recovery from a variety of injuries.
The defendant shouted pro-Palestinian slogans on several occasions during the trial.
Matar, from New Jersey, previously told media he had only read two pages of 'The Satanic Verses' but believed the author had "attacked Islam."
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After the novel was published in 1988, Rushdie became the center of a fierce tug-of-war between free speech advocates and those who insisted that insulting religion, particularly Islam, was unacceptable in any circumstance.
Rushdie, who was born in Mumbai but moved to England as a boy, was propelled into the spotlight with his second novel 'Midnight's Children' (1981), which won Britain's prestigious Booker Prize for its portrayal of post-independence India.
But 'The Satanic Verses' brought him far greater, mostly unwelcome, attention.
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Main image courtesy of AFP