Salman Rushdie to publish first fiction book since stabbing
NEW YORK: British-American novelist Salman Rushdie will publish his first major work of fiction since the brutal stabbing that blinded him in one eye, his publisher said on Thursday.
"The Eleventh Hour," is a collection of short stories examining themes and places of interest to Rushdie who narrowly escaped death during the 2022 attack. It will be released on November 4, 2025.
The would-be assassin, Hadi Matar, was convicted of attempted murder at a trial in upstate New York at which Rushdie gave vivid testimony about the incident.
"The three novellas in this volume, all written in the last twelve months, explore themes and places that have been much on my mind -- mortality, Bombay, farewells, England (especially Cambridge), anger, peace, America," he said in a statement released by Penguin publishing.
"I'm happy that the stories, very different from one another in setting, story and technique, nevertheless manage to be in conversation with one another, and with the two stories that serve as prologue and epilogue to this threesome."
During the trial of Rushdie's attacker, Matar's legal team sought to prevent witnesses from characterizing Rushdie as a victim of persecution following Iran's 1989 fatwa calling for his murder over supposed blasphemy in "The Satanic Verses."
Rushdie told jurors of Matar "stabbing and slashing" him during an event at an upscale cultural center in rural New York.
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