The man charged with repeatedly stabbing Rushdie is reportedly entitled to the manuscript of the author's new memoir, “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder,” as part of his trial preparation.
ADVERTISEMENTSalman Rushdie's plans to publish a book about a 2022 attempt on his life may delay the trial of his alleged attacker, which is scheduled to begin next week.
Hadi Matar, the man charged with repeatedly stabbing Rushdie as the author was being introduced for a lecture, is entitled to the manuscript and related material as part of his trial preparation, Chautauqua County Judge David Foley said during a pretrial conference.
Foley gave Matar and his attorney until today, Wednesday 3 January, to decide if they want to delay the trial until they have the book in hand, either in advance from the publisher or once it has been released in April.
Defense attorney Nathaniel Barone said after court that he favoured a delay but would consult with Matar.
Jury selection is scheduled to begin on 8 January.
Rushdie, who was left blinded in his right eye and with a damaged left hand in the August 2022 attack, announced last year that he had written about the attack in a memoir: “ Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder .”
The 256-page book is scheduled to be published on 16 April.
“This was a necessary book for me to write: a way to take charge of what happened, and to answer violence with art,” Rushdie said in a statement released by Penguin Random House.
“'Knife' is a searing book, and a reminder of the power of words to make sense of the unthinkable," Penguin Random House CEO Nihar Malaviya said in a statement. “We are honored to publish it, and amazed at Salman’s determination to tell his story, and to return to the work he loves.”
Trial preparation was already well under way when the attorneys involved in the case learned about the book.
District Attorney Jason Schmidt said Rushdie's representatives had declined the prosecutor's request for a copy of the manuscript, citing intellectual property rights. Schmidt downplayed the relevance of the book at the upcoming trial, given that the attack was witnessed by a large, live audience and Rushdie himself could testify.
“There were recordings of it,” Schmidt said of the assault.
Matar, 26, of New Jersey has been held without bail since his arrest immediately after Rushdie was stabbed in front of a stunned audience at the Chautauqua Institution, a summer arts and education retreat in western New York.
Schmidt has said Matar was on a “mission to kill Mr. Rushdie” when he rushed from the audience to the stage and stabbed him more than a dozen times until being subdued by onlookers.
Matar, in a jailhouse interview with The New York Post after his arrest, praised late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and said Rushdie “attacked Islam.”
Rushdie spent years in hiding after Khomeini issued a 1989 edict, a fatwa, calling for his death after publication of his novel “The Satanic Verses,” which some Muslims consider blasphemous. Over the past two decades, Rushdie has traveled freely.
“Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder” will be published in the US by Random House, the Penguin Random House imprint that released his novel “ Victory City ” last year, which was completed before the attack.
Rushdie was one of Euronews Culture's People of the Year 2023 - the eight figures who impacted, influenced and defined a year in European and Global Culture.
ADVERTISEMENTWe said: "Known the world over for his exceptional writing and advocating on free speech, his 2023 comeback after such a traumatic ordeal showed, once again, Rushdie’s resilience in the face of violent adversity, standing up against those that threaten to censor creative voices."
