New Delhi: Internationally renowned author and Booker Prize-winner Salman Rushdie’s new memoir, ‘KNIFE: Meditations After an Attempted Murder’, a gripping account of surviving an attempt on his life 30 years after the fatwa was ordered against him, will be published by Penguin Random House in more than 15 territories on April 16, 2024.
Speaking out for the first time about the traumatic events of August 12, 2022, ‘Knife’ is a powerful, deeply personal and ultimately uplifting meditation on life, loss, love, the power of art, finding the strength to keep going — and to stand up again.
“This was a necessary book for me to write: a way to take charge of what happened, and to answer violence with art,” the author says.
“It is a searing book, and a reminder of the power of words to make sense of the unthinkable. We are honoured to publish it, and amazed at Salman’s determination to tell his story, and to return to the work he loves,” says Nihar Malaviya, CEO of Penguin Random House.
Rushdie has been translated into more than 40 languages, his sixteen works of fiction include ‘Midnight’s Children’ — for which he won the Booker Prize in 1981, the Booker of Bookers on the 25th anniversary of the prize and Best of the Booker on the 40th anniversary — ‘Shame’, ‘The Ground Beneath Her Feet’, ‘The Satanic Verses’, ‘Haroun and the Sea of Stories’ and ‘Quichotte’ (shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2019).
In June 2007, he received Knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours and joined the prestigious Companions of Honour in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in her Platinum Jubilee year.
His new novel, ‘Victory City’ — a tale for our times, styled as an ancient epic and a testament to the power of storytelling — was published globally in February this year to major critical acclaim.