Book Review: "Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder" by Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie’s account of being stabbed to near-death and then recovering, as an elderly man, defies the genres I usually focus on. But his work, “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder” also illuminates a rare and important perspective: the existential reckoning with death by violence, from someone who survived his attack, and the brutal humiliations of modern medical care necessary for his recovery.

Salman Rushdie is no stranger to death threats. After the publication of his controversial work “The Satanic Verses” in 1988, a fatwa for his death with a $3 million bounty was issued by the Supreme Ruler of Iran. But decades later, while speaking at an event in Chautauqua, New York, Rushdie at the age of 75, was attacked by a young man with knife and stabbed 15 times. “So it’s you,” he recounts of the moments his attacker rushed toward him with the knife, “Here you are“. Oddly, two nights before Rushdie had dreamt he was being stabbed in an ancient Roman amphitheater by a gladiator, in what may have been premonition of sorts.

Rushdie’s contemplative nearness with mortality offers an enhanced perspective on death we rarely witness, not a gradual acceptance after slow decline or a shocked resignation before the looming end approaches, but more of a meditation on experiencing the dying process initiated by violence and recovery. This insight is incredibly valuable to me as a bedside companion for many. For example, Rushdie writes, “When Death comes very close to you, the rest of the world goes far away and you can feel a great loneliness. At such a time kind words are comforting and strengthening.”

I’ve always admired the poetic and elegant way Rushdie writes fiction and he brought his stylistic voice to this personal reflection too. For death-curious folks who also shy from true-crime but wonder at the wisdom gifted from this close encounter with death by violence, Rushdie offers an honest and visceral reflection into a death literate conversation.