What's New Salman Rushdie stuns court with darkly witty testimony on stabbing attack By Itoro Oladokun 12 February 2025 | 11:52 am Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on WhatsApp Share on Telegram With a mix of humour and chilling detail, Salman Rushdie, the Indian-British novelist, shocked a jury on Tuesday as he calmly recounted the terrifying moments when a masked man stormed the stage in western New York and repeatedly stabbed him. “It occurred to me that I was dying. That was my predominant thought,” the renowned.
.. With a mix of humour and chilling detail, Salman Rushdie , the Indian-British novelist, shocked a jury on Tuesday as he calmly recounted the terrifying moments when a masked man stormed the stage in western New York and repeatedly stabbed him.
“It occurred to me that I was dying. That was my predominant thought,” the renowned author stated, adding that the bystanders who subdued the attacker likely saved his life. Testifying at the trial of 27-year-old Hadi Matar—who has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder—Rushdie faced the man who nearly killed him for the first time since the 2022 attack.
However, he refused to acknowledge him, just as he had in his memoir Knife , where he referred to Matar only as “the A”—short for assassin, assailant, or asinine. In the court, Rushdie recounted how he initially thought he was being punched until he saw blood pouring onto his clothes. “He was hitting me repeatedly.
Hitting and slashing,” he sa.