Salman Rushdie’s new book is his first fiction since a brutal attack. He tells us why

Salman Rushdie Returns to Fiction After Near-Fatal Attack

Salman Rushdie’s new collection of short fiction, “The Eleventh Hour,” marks a pivotal moment in the acclaimed author’s career as his first work of fiction since surviving a brutal stabbing attack in 2022. The book, featuring two short stories and three novellas, represents not just a literary achievement but a personal milestone in his ongoing recovery.

“While I was writing ‘Knife,’ I couldn’t even think about fiction. I had no space in my head for that,” Rushdie told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “But almost immediately after I finished the book, before it came out, it’s like this door swung open in my head and I was allowed to enter the room of fiction again.”

The collection, which hit bookstores on Tuesday, explores themes of age, mortality and memory—understandable preoccupations for an author who will turn 79 next year and who survived his attack so narrowly that first responders initially couldn’t find a pulse.

Two pieces in the collection—”In the South” and “The Old Man in the Piazza”—were completed before the attack, but all five works share a contemplative quality about life’s final chapters. The collection draws inspiration from diverse sources, including Rushdie’s years as a Cambridge student and unexpected influences from pop culture. “The Old Man in the Piazza,” featuring an elderly character treated as a sage, was inspired by a scene from the original “Pink Panther” movie.

The novella “Oklahoma” emerged from Rushdie’s fascination with Franz Kafka’s unfinished manuscript “Amerika,” about a European immigrant’s journey through America—a country Kafka never visited. Another piece, “Late,” took an unexpected supernatural turn when Rushdie discovered he had written the sentence “When he woke up that morning, he was dead” without recalling doing so.

“I literally didn’t know where it came from,” Rushdie explained. “I just left it sitting on my laptop for 24 hours. I went back and looked at it, and then I thought, ‘You know, OK, as it happens, I’ve never written a ghost story.'”

Rushdie’s re-emergence in public life comes despite permanent injuries from the attack, most notably the loss of vision in his right eye. The Indian-born author, who moved to England as a teenager and has long resided in New York, continues to make public appearances and lives in Manhattan with his wife, poet Rachel Eliza Griffiths.

The attack in August 2022 was linked to lingering controversy over his 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses,” which contained dream sequences about the Prophet Muhammad that some Muslims considered blasphemous. The book prompted Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to issue a fatwa in 1989 calling for Rushdie’s death, forcing him into hiding for years. Although Iran announced in the late 1990s it would no longer enforce the decree, the author’s notoriety persisted.

His attacker, Hadi Matar, who wasn’t even born when “The Satanic Verses” was published, was sentenced in May to 25 years in prison after being found guilty of attempted murder and assault. A federal trial remains pending.

Despite his brush with death, Rushdie maintains the same contemplative outlook on his legacy that many artists share. “What do we amount to in the end? What did our life add up to? Was it worth it or was it trivial and forgettable?” he reflected. “And if you’re an artist, you have the added question of will your work survive?”

He takes particular satisfaction in knowing that “Midnight’s Children,” his magical narrative about India’s independence that won the Booker Prize in 1981, continues to find young readers decades after its publication. “That feels like a prize in itself,” he said.

Rushdie’s love of immersion in the world around him has remained constant throughout his career. He encourages writing students to move beyond the “write what you know” mantra if what they know isn’t interesting enough. “Go find something out, write about that,” he advises, citing Charles Dickens’ ability to credibly portray characters across all social strata.

Despite his elder statesman status in world literature, Rushdie rejects the notion of becoming a guru-like figure. “I don’t want to be a kind of guru or oracle,” he insists. “I don’t have answers. I have, I hope, interesting questions.”

The attack has not changed his approach to writing fiction, nor has it made him more spiritual. When asked if his near-death experience altered his religious views, Rushdie affirmed his continued atheism, noting that he and his late friend Christopher Hitchens, author of “God Is Not Great,” remain “united in that zone of disbelief, aggressive disbelief.”

For Rushdie, the joy of returning to fiction writing remains pure and unchanged. “I hope that people reading the book feel a certain kind of joy in it,” he said, “because I certainly felt joyful writing it.”