Salman Rushdie reflects on language, imagination and mortality

Salman Rushdie knows more about death than most of us. Decades ago, he lived in hiding after a death threat was issued by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini following the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses.

In 2022, he was nearly stabbed to death at the Chautauqua Institution, just moments before he was due to speak about the importance of keeping writers safe. He survived the attack but lost an eye and bears lasting scars from the vicious assault—an experience he recounts in his moving memoir, Knife.

Rushdie has now returned to fiction with his new book of stories, The 11th Hour. He joins us on The Connection to discuss the importance of imagination, why language is his knife, and what mortality and old age mean to him.