On Aug. 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie was promoting his 21st book, Victory City, in Chautauqua, N.Y., when a man rushed the stage and stabbed him. Prosecutors say the attacker was attempting to carry out a 1989 fatwa issued by Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, calling for the death of the Satanic Verses author. Once Rushdie regained consciousness, he went into journalist mode, recording his memories of the assault and recovery process. The result is the memoir Knife. Readers don’t need to be up-to-date on Rushdie’s oeuvre in order to understand his story; he references quotes and plotlines in his past novels that he thinks foreshadowed the attack. Through his writing, he works to make sense of the violence he endured as he attempts to heal.
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