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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Rachel Eliza Griffiths

‘Ours was a love story, not an attempted murder story’: Rachel Eliza Griffiths on the day her husband, Salman Rushdie, was stabbed

Salman Rushdie and Rachel Eliza Griffiths.
Salman Rushdie and Rachel Eliza Griffiths. Photograph: Brigitte Lacombe

I woke early and alone on the sunny morning of Friday 12 August 2022. I was having coffee at the moment my husband, the Indian novelist Salman Rushdie, was nearly killed in a stabbing on stage in Chautauqua, New York.

This was the last morning, innocent and ordinary, before my life was shattered by the 27 seconds Salman’s attacker took to stab him more than a dozen times, driving a knife into his right eye until it nearly touched his optic nerve.

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