World-renowned author Salman Rushdie posted a picture of himself on Monday, showing one eye, after last year’s assassination attempt by a supporter of the Iranian regime.
Rushdie, 75, was getting ready to deliver a lecture on artistic freedom last summer in New York when Hadi Matar rushed the stage and repeatedly stabbed the Indian-born writer.
The attack on Rushdie came more than 30 years after Iran’s then-supreme leader Khomeini issued a fatwa, or edict, calling on Muslims to assassinate Rushdie the year after “The Satanic Verses” was published.
“The photo in @NewYorker is dramatic and powerful but this, more prosaically, is what I actually look like,” Rushdie said in a tweet on Monday.
He was referring to a recent interview with the US-based New Yorker, titled “The Defiance of Salman Rushdie.”
In one of Rushdie’s few interviews since the assassination attempt, he revealed how people were scared to be around him during his first few months in New York.
“I thought, The only way I can stop that is to behave as if I’m not scared. I have to show them there’s nothing to be scared about,” he told The New Yorker, recalling one night at dinner with his agent.
The painter Eric Fischl stopped by their table and said, “Shouldn’t we all be afraid and leave the restaurant?” Rushdie responded: “Well, I’m having dinner. You can do what you like.”
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