Rushdie 'pleased' with attacker's maximum sentence
Author Sir Salman Rushdie has said he is "pleased" the man who tried to kill him in a knife attack in 2022 has received the maximum possible prison sentence.
Hadi Matar, 27, was jailed for 25 years earlier this month for attempted murder after repeatedly stabbing Sir Salman on a New York lecture stage.
"I was pleased that he got the maximum available, and I hope he uses it to reflect upon his deeds," Sir Salman told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
The attack left the award-winning writer blind in one eye, with damage to his liver and a paralysed hand caused by nerve damage to his arm.
Last year, Sir Salman published a book titled Knife reflcting on the attack, which he has described as "my way of fighting back".
It includes an imagined conversation with Matar. "I thought if I was to really meet him, to ask him questions, I wouldn't get very much out of him," Sir Salman told Radio 4.
"I doubt that he would open his heart to me. And so I thought, well, I could open it by myself. I'd probably do it better than a real conversation would."
The fictional conversation was brought to life by BBC film-maker Alan Yentob in an artificial intelligence animation created for a documentary last year.
The results were "very startling", Sir Salman said on Monday. "I have to say it certainly made a point."
The author was speaking on Radio 4 to pay tribute to Yentob, the BBC's former creative director, who died on Saturday.
"Apart from everything that everybody's been saying about him - that he was an unbelievable champion of the arts and so on - he also had a real gift for friendship," he said. "He was a very strong ally in bad times."
Sir Salman added: "He was a great programme maker, and I hope that's how he will be primarily remembered."
Yentob leaves a "colossal" legacy, he said. "He's one of the giants of British media in the last generation, and I think he will be remembered as a maker of great programmes, as an enabler of great programmes."
BBC arts broadcaster Alan Yentob dies aged 78
Alan Yentob: BBC TV's creative giant, on screen and off
The pair's personal and professional relationship extended to Yentob famously enlisting Sir Salman to take part in a spoof arm wrestle for a scene in BBC mockumentary W1A.
"People keep asking me who won," Sir Salman said. "And of course nobody won because it was complete fraud."
In November, the author will publish a short story collection, The Eleventh Hour, his first work of fiction to be written since the stabbing.
The attack came 35 years after Sir Salman's controversial novel The Satanic Verses, which had long made him the target of death threats for its portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad.
Rushdie attacker sentenced to 25 years in prison
Salman Rushdie to release first fiction since stabbing
Salman Rushdie: Losing an eye upsets me every day
Salman Rushdie tells court he thought he was dying after stabbing
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They're trying to storm the stage. I haven't quite finished the scene. When do I leave?' But you've got to get the scene. I could get shot, but that's not important. Henry: There's a certain level of sociopathy. Slate: I feel like I'm never on my mark, and it was always a very kind camera operator being like, 'Hey, Jenny, you weren't in the shot shoulder-wise.' I feel like such an idiot. Part of it is working through lifelong, longstanding feelings of 'I'm a fool and my foolishness is going to make people incredibly angry with me.' And then really still wanting to participate and having no real certainty that I'm going to be able to do anything but just make all of my fears real. Part of the thing that I love about performance is I just want to experience the version of myself that does not collapse into useless fragments when I face the thing that scares me the most. I do that, and then I feel the appetite for performance again. Do you see yourself in roles when you're watching other people's films or TV show? Graham: At the end of the day, we're all big fans of acting. That's why we do it. Because when we were young, we were inspired by people on the screen, or we were inspired by places where we could put ourselves and lose our imaginations. We have a lot of t— in this industry. But I think if we fight hard enough, we can come through. Do you know what I mean? It's people that are here for the right reasons. It's a collective. Acting is not a game of golf. It's a team. It's in front and it's behind the camera. I think it's important that we nourish that. Henry: And remember that none of us are t—. Bardem: What is a t—? I may be one of them and I don't know it. Graham: I'll explain it to you later.
