Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder

Rushdie has staunchly defended free speech throughout his career; in Knife, he uses his own experiences as a springboard to argue for the critical role that free speech plays in promoting freedom more generally. In addition to telling the story of being attacked as a result of his own public criticisms of religion, Rushdie discusses other incidents in which people have used violence to intimidate artists and intellectuals and curb their freedom of expression. For example, he twice mentions the 2015 murders of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo employees, and details the 1994 attack on Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz. Because Rushdie, like many others, believes that such violence cannot be allowed to stifle free speech, he frequently mentions his own and others’ efforts to protect freedom of expression. In several chapters, he writes about PEN America, an organization dedicated to promoting and protecting free speech, and he describes the effort of the International Cities of Refuge Network to provide safety to those targeted for expressing their ideas. He often returns to the motif of gratitude for those who spoke out to support him after Khomeini’s death edict and expresses scorn for those who did not.