Salman Rushdie returns to the fore with Knife - Coltello, a new book dedicated to the aggression suffered in summer 2022 when he was stabbed. The cover resembles a canvas by Lucio Fontana, with that cut in the cardboard that evokes the thrust of the cutlass into the flesh of Hadi Matar.
The hot topic, hidden in the memoir, is that of freedom of expression of which Rushdie, after having stopped hiding, championed for years also through the leadership of the US PEN. "Advocating censorship on behalf of vulnerable groups is a slippery slope. It can result in the opposite of what you want," Rushdie told CBS in an interview that preceded the memoir's arrival in bookstores on April 16. In In 1989 he was sentenced to death by Ayatollah Khomeini for having written a book deemed "blasphemous" inspired by the life of Muhammad. The Satanic Verses will be published simultaneously in Italy by Mondadori.