Nine months after the knife attack, Salman Rushdie resurfaces in public in New York
• Also read: Six months after the stabbing, Salman Rushdie says writing is difficult for him
• Also read: Salman Rushdie has lost an eye and a hand
• Also read: Grand jury indictment suspect in Rushdie assault pleads not guilty
For the first time since a knife attack in the United States in August that nearly claimed his life, British writer Salman Rushdie made a public appearance at a gala event for an advocacy group in New York on Thursday night. Writer.
The famous writer of Indian descent, naturalized American and living in New York received an honorary award from the defense group for freedom of expression and literature, PEN America, of which he was president.
The 75-year-old intellectual, who wore glasses with a black lens over his right eye, was first photographed on the gala’s red carpet at the American Museum of Natural History near Central Park in Manhattan.
AFP
His presence had not been announced and he addressed the 700 guests at the gala with emotion.
PEN America, an association that champions freedom of expression, has never been more “important,” said Salman Rushdie, quoted in a statement by PEN America.
“Terrorism should not terrorize us. Violence should not deter us. The fight goes on,” he announced in French, Spanish and English.
On August 12, he was invited to a literary conference in Chautauqua, a small cultural and idyllic town in upstate New York, near the Great Lake Erie.
At the time of the speech, a young Lebanese American suspected of being sympathizers with Shia Iran had lunged at him with a knife and stabbed him a dozen times.
Bystanders and guards then mastered that the attacker was immediately arrested, charged and detained pending trial.
“Without these people, I certainly wouldn’t be here today. I was the target that day but they were heroes (…) I owe them my life,” said Salman Rushdie.
His literary agent, Andrew Wylie, announced in October that he had lost sight in one eye and the use of one hand.
In February, when his latest novel, Victory City, came out, the author, in his first interview since his attack, told culture elite The New Yorker that he had major writing problems and suffered from post-traumatic stress.
Revered by elites in the West, hated by Muslim extremists in Iran or Pakistan – some had applauded his aggression – Salman Rushdie is an icon of freedom of expression.
He has been living under the death threat of a fatwa issued by Iran since 1989 following the publication of his book The Satanic Verses.