Salman Rushdie, appearing before a New York court Tuesday, recalled believing that he was dying as he lay in a pool of blood following his repeated “stabbing and slashing” by a then-unknown assailant at an arts institute in 2022.
“I was aware of this person rushing at me from my right-hand side. I was aware of someone with dark hair and dark clothes. … I was struck by his eyes, which seemed dark and ferocious to me,” the novelist, 77, testified in his first face-to-face meeting with his alleged attacker since his near death, according to reporters in the room.
Throughout the harrowing testimony, Hadi Matar, 27, sat across the room, charged with attempted murder and assault, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
“He hit me very hard around my jawline and neck,” Rushdie said, recalling the first blow as he appeared on stage at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York. “Initially, I thought he’d punched me with his fist, but very soon afterwards I saw a large quantity of blood pouring on to my clothes. He was hitting me repeatedly. Hitting and slashing.”
The most painful moment was when the blade plunged into his right eye, resulting in permanent blindness, he said.
“I was screaming because of the pain,” he said of that moment. “I struggled to get away. I held up my hand in self-defense and was stabbed through that.”
Rushdie estimated that he was stabbed 15 times, resulting in wounds to his face, head, chest, throat, hand and waist. One of the slashes severed tendons and damaged nerves in his left hand.
His attacker was eventually tackled by bystanders, including Henry Reese, the cofounder of Pittsburgh’s City of Asylum, who also suffered a slash wound during the melee. Reese planned to discuss the need for writers’ safety and freedom of expression while interviewing Rushdie.
As more people piled onto his attacker, Rushdie said, he realized the gravity of his wounds.
“I became aware of a great quantity of blood I was lying in. My sense of time was quite cloudy. I was in pain from my eye and hand, and it occurred to me quite clearly I was dying,” he said.
He was flown to a Pennsylvania hospital, where he spent 17 days. He then spent more than three weeks at a New York City rehabilitation center.
The attack followed years of threats and failed assassination attempts against him for his work.
He was in hiding for years after the publishing of his 1988 novel, “The Satanic Verses,” which resulted in a number of violent riots. Iran’s then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against him and the book’s publishers that called for their assassination.
Go Ad-Free — And Protect The Free Press
Already contributed? Log in to hide these messages.
Matar, speaking with the New York Post while behind bars immediately after the attack, said he respected Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini but he wouldn’t say whether his fatwa motivated his actions. He also said that he had only “read a couple pages” of Rushdie’s novel.