Months after being stabbed repeatedly as he prepared to give a lecture, Salman Rushdie is blind in his right eye, struggles to write and, at times, has “frightening” nightmares.
“Well, you know, I’ve been better,” he told The New Yorker's David Remnick during an interview published Monday. “But, considering what happened, I’m not so bad."
“There is scar tissue on the right side of his face,” Remnick wrote. “He speaks as fluently as ever, but his lower lip droops on one side. The ulnar nerve in his left hand was badly damaged.” “I’ve tried very hard over these years to avoid recrimination and bitterness,” he said. “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.”
During his interview, he noted ruefully that sales for his book had soared after the stabbing, as if he were more popular when in danger.