Salman Rushdie: Losing an eye upsets me every day

Sir Salman Rushdie has spoken in chilling detail to the BBC about what he re of the attack two years ago, in which he was stabbed on stage.

The Booker Prize-winning author said his eye was left hanging down his face "like a soft-boiled egg", and that losing the eye "upsets him every day".

"I thinking I was dying," he said. "Fortunately, I was wrong."

Sir Salman said he is using his new book, Knife, as a way of fighting back against what happened.

Sir Salman, who was born to non-practising Muslims and is an atheist, has long been a vocal advocate for the freedom of expression.

But he warned it has become "much more difficult".

"A lot of people, including a lot of young people, I'm sorry to say, have formed the opinion that restrictions on freedom of speech are often a good idea," he said.

"Whereas of course, the whole point of freedom of speech is that you have to permit speech you don't agree with."

The attack took place at an education institute in New York state in August 2022, as he was preparing to give a lecture.

He recalled how the assailant came "sprinting up the stairs" and stabbed him 12 times, including in his neck and abdomen, in an attack lasting 27 seconds.

"I couldn't have fought him," the author said. "I couldn't have run away from him."

Sir Salman said he fell to the floor, where he lay with "a spectacular quantity of blood" all around him.

He was taken to a hospital by helicopter and spent six weeks recovering there.

The Indian-born British-American author, 76, is one of the most influential writers of modern times. The attack dominated news headlines across the world.

Sir Salman previously spent several years in hiding after the 1988 publication of The Satanic Verses triggered threats against his life.

He itted he had thought someone might "jump out of an audience" one day. "Clearly it would've been absurd for it not to cross my mind."

He said he'd had a "nightmare" about the attack, two days before his event, and as a result didn't want to go.

"And then I thought, you know, it's a dream. And plus, they're paying me quite well. Everybody's bought tickets. I should go."

The attack damaged Sir Salman's liver and hands, and severed nerves in his right eye.

His eye looked "very distended, swollen," he said. "It was kind of hanging out of my face, sitting on my cheek, I've said like a soft-boiled egg. And blind."

Sir Salman said losing one eye "upsets me every day". He finds he has to take greater care when walking down stairs, or crossing a road, or even when pouring water into a glass.

But he considers himself lucky to have avoided brain damage. "It meant I was actually still able to be myself."

The at the event where Sir Salman was stabbed told the BBC he wished he could have done more to prevent the attack.

"You feel like if you had acted quicker, a lot of this could've been prevented," said Henry Reese.

But Sir Salman's gratitude to the people who helped him on the day, including Mr Reese, as well as the doctors who cared for him, is clear from the very opening page of Knife.

The book is dedicated, simply, to "the men and women who saved my life".