For the first time since he was stabbed in the United States in August, the British writer Salman Rushdie confides this Monday, February 6, having a lot of trouble writing and suffering from post-traumatic stress.
” I sit down to write and nothing happens. I write, but it’s a mixture of emptiness and nonsense, things that I write and erase the next day. On the eve of the release in the United States of his latest novel, Salman Rushdie confides in the columns of the journal of American cultural elites, The New Yorker.
This book, Victory Cityis presented as the “ epic tale of a woman in the 14th century which will erect a city, suffer exile and threats in a patriarchal world. Completed before the violent attack of several stab wounds on August 12, 2022 in the northern United States, which left him seriously injured, this novel is presented as the translation of the historical epic of Pampa Kampana, a young orphan girl endowed with magical powers by a goddess, who will create the city of Bisnaga, literally Victory City.
” Not out of the woods yet »
But, says the 75-year-old intellectual, ” I found it very, very difficult to write “. ” I’m not off the hook yet “, blows the novelist of Indian origin, naturalized American, who has lived since 1989 under the threat of death from a fatwa issued by Iran. ” PTSD exists, you know “, he adds about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD, in French).
His exclusive secrets to the editor-in-chief of New Yorkerwriter David Remnick, are titled Salman Rushdie’s Challenge and accompanied by an hour-long audio interview and a grim black-and-white photo of the 75-year-old intellectual, his face scarred and wearing glasses with a black lens over his right eye. In front of this shot that he judged on Twitter ” spectacular and powerful Rushdie posted another, in color, showing him wearing the same black goggle lens, but looking calmer.
No promotions
The writer will not promote this 15th novel, which comes out on Tuesday in the United States and Thursday in the United Kingdom, the newspaper told the newspaper last week. The Guardian his agent Andrew Wylie even “ if his recovery progresses since the attack that almost cost him his life. A young American of Lebanese origin suspected of being sympathizers with Shiite Iran threw himself on him armed with a knife while the author of the satanic verses was going to speak at a conference in Chautauqua, a small cultural and bucolic retirement town in upstate New York, near Great Lake Erie.
Rushdie, who had resumed a life in society in recent years in New York, lost the sight of one eye and the use of one hand following the attack, Andrew Wylie announced in the fall. The author had not spoken since the summer, apart from a few tweets promoting his novel. ” I’ve known better, but considering what happened, I’m not so bad “, he concludes, adding “ to hold (one’s attacker) responsible of his state of health.
(With AFP)