A new documentary titled “Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie” explores the author’s experience following a stabbing attack and his decades of living under threat. The film interweaves video diary recordings made by Rushdie’s wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, during his hospital recovery with archival footage documenting the years following a fatwa issued against him in 1989.
The fatwa was issued by Iran’s then supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in response to Rushdie’s novel “The Satanic Verses,” leading the author to go into hiding under armed guard for nine years. The documentary contrasts visceral footage of Rushdie’s medical treatment in 2022 with historical news coverage showing violent reactions to the book across multiple countries, including a firebombing of a newspaper office in the United States, deadly riots in Pakistan, and attacks on translators in Japan and Italy.
Director Alex Gibney, an Oscar-winning documentarian, was invited by Rushdie and Griffiths to curate the film. Rushdie initially resisted including the archival footage, preferring to view his attacker as an isolated individual rather than representative of broader threats. However, the film ultimately demonstrates connections between the decades-long climate of opposition to free speech and the violent attack that nearly killed him.
Both Rushdie and Griffiths, a poet and photographer, have previously published memoirs about the incident: Rushdie’s “Knife” in 2024 and Griffiths’ “The Flower Bearers” earlier this year. The couple participated in the documentary project as a means of continuing their work as artists while documenting their shared experience.
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