Salman Rushdie’s new memoir un-wounds the ‘knife’ of language

In the last section of Salman Rushdie’s autobiographical nonfiction, Knife, there’s a startling piece of information regarding the man who attempted to murder the writer on August 12, 2022, at the Chautauqua Amphitheatre in New York. Rushdie does not want to call the 24-year-old Lebanese American a fanatic who tried to kill him by name, but rather by the initial “the A.” That can mean Assassin, Assailant, and Ass. The police officer who arrested the Assailant found many knives in the bag that was hidden by the stage. Rushdie is justifiably perturbed to learn the fact and wonders about the reason for it. I feel the man thought like a murder-mechanic. He wanted to carry his toolkit, which in his case were variations of the weapon he had chosen for the act. It made him feel professionally armed for the job. He left the final choice to the way he visualised the scene of his crime.

Literature: a doubled edged knife

Yet, it turned out the Assassin wasn’t skilful enough for the job. The doctor at the UPMC Hamot, the hospital in Erie, Pennsylvania where Rushdie was first admitted, told him he was lucky because the Assailant “had no idea how to kill a man...

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