On Monday (February 7), novelist Salman Rushdie uploaded a selfie on Twitter, months after being stabbed by a 24-year-old Islamist named Hadi Matar.
The development came hours after the American weekly magazine, New Yorker, published an article on the novelist titled ‘The Defiance of Salman Rushdie.’
“The photo in New Yorker is dramatic and powerful but this, more prosaically, is what I actually look like,” he had tweeted while attaching of a picture of him wearing a tinted glass over his non-functional right eye.
The photo in @NewYorker is dramatic and powerful but this, more prosaically, is what I actually look like. 😊 pic.twitter.com/ydrV7WvWgE
— Salman Rushdie (@SalmanRushdie) February 6, 2023
On February 6, New Yorker published an article on Rushdie’s new book ‘Victory City’ and added a black-and-white image of the novelist.
“A Profile of the author Salman Rushdie, whose new book, “Victory City”—his 16th since a fatwa was issued against him—is an affirmation of the power of storytelling,” it had tweeted a day later.
The novelist wanted to cut the drama and point out to his global readers that the reality is not as scintillating as the featured image of the American magazine.
A Profile of the author Salman Rushdie, whose new book, “Victory City”—his 16th since a fatwa was issued against him—is an affirmation of the power of storytelling. https://t.co/I7wcVqGImF
— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) February 6, 2023
It is noteworthy that 34 years ago, then Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against Rushdie, calling on Muslims to kill him. The fatwa was issued in response to the release of the controversial book “The Satanic Verses.”
The Islamists deemed some of the passages in the book about the Prophet Muhammad to be blasphemous. The book was banned in India in 1988 by the Rajiv Gandhi government.
On August 12 last year, a 24-year-old Hadi Matar from New Jersey stabbed Rushdie just before he was to start his lecture at a literary event at Chautauqua Institution in western New York.
He sustained severe injuries and was rushed to the hospital. As per reports, the nerve in his arm got damaged in the attack. He also sustained liver wounds, and eventually lost an eye in the process.
