Sir Salman Rushdie has shared his first picture since being seriously injured in a horrific assassination attempt.
The Indian-born British author was repeatedly stabbed during a literary event in New York last year and has expressed 'overwhelming gratitude' for still being alive.
The 75-year-old was due to deliver a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in August 2022.
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Instead, he suffered severe, life-changing injuries including losing sight in one eye.
Taking to Twitter, Sir Salman shared a photo of what he now 'actually' looks like.
Captioning the post, he wrote: "The photo in @NewYorker is dramatic and powerful but this, more prosaically, is what I actually look like."
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Well in his first interview since the incident he told The New Yorker: “It’s very nice that everybody was so moved by this, you know? I had never thought about how people would react if I was assassinated, or almost assassinated.
“I’m lucky. What I really want to say is that my main overwhelming feeling is gratitude.”
After months of recovery, Sir Salman said he is 'not so bad' considering the severity of the incident.
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“The big injuries are healed, essentially. I have feeling in my thumb and index finger and in the bottom half of the palm”, he added.
“I’m doing a lot of hand therapy, and I’m told that I’m doing very well.
“There is such a thing as PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), you know. I’ve found it very, very difficult to write.
“I sit down to write, and nothing happens. I write, but it’s a combination of blankness and junk, stuff that I write and that I delete the next day. I’m not out of that forest yet, really.
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“I’ve simply never allowed myself to use the phrase ‘writer’s block’. Everybody has a moment when there’s nothing in your head. And you think: ‘Oh, well, there’s never going to be anything’.
“One of the things about being 75 and having written 21 books is that you know that, if you keep at it, something will come.”
His alleged attacker Hadi Matar, who was 24 years old at the time, has made multiple appearances at Chautauqua County Court in New York, having pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and assault charges following the incident.
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Sir Salman told The New Yorker he blames Matar for the attack and when asked if he feels he was let down by security at Chautauqua, he replied: “I’ve tried very hard over these years to avoid recrimination and bitterness.
“I just think it’s not a good look. One of the ways I’ve dealt with this whole thing is to look forward and not backwards. What happens tomorrow is more important than what happened yesterday.”
Topics: World News, News