Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder

A fatwa is a ruling on Islamic law issued by a recognized religious authority. On February 14, 1989, the Islamic leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a proclamation condemning Salman Rushdie to death for the ideas expressed in Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses. Because the Western press labeled this proclamation a fatwa, it is popularly referred to in this way, although according to Islamic law it does not technically qualify as such. The Western press’s use of the term fatwa during its reporting of Khomeini’s proclamation has led non-Muslims to believe that the term refers to a kind of religious death sentence. In reality, fatwas are issued frequently, and most often deal with mundane subjects like proper conduct and dispute resolution. Because Rushdie himself uses the term fatwa as a label for Khomeini’s proclamation, this study guide uses the term in this way when summarizing Rushdie’s perspective. His frequent mention of Khomeini’s fatwa in Knife are central to the narrative and thematically emphasize The Devastating Impact of Violence.

Founded in 1922, PEN America is a nonprofit organization headquartered in New York City. Its mission is to promote free speech. PEN America focuses on literature as a vehicle for free expression and the promotion of human rights, and it works to curb censorship and protect writers and others from reprisals. The organization runs the PEN America Prison and Justice Writing Program and the PEN Writers’ Emergency Fund, among other educational and advocacy efforts. It hosts the annual PEN America Literary Gala, the PEN America Los Angeles Gala, the PEN America Literary Awards, and the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature (the last event of which Salman Rushdie is a cofounder). Rushdie has been associated with PEN America for decades and at one time served as its president. He was honored with the organization’s Centenary Courage Award in 2023. In Knife, Rushdie frequently mentions the organization in thematically developing his argument for The Importance of Free Speech. The organization was the subject of some controversy in 2024, however, because many writers felt that it did not condemn the violence in Gaza strongly enough, and many of the authors in contention for that year’s PEN America Literary Awards withdrew their works. Although Rushdie signed onto an open letter from former PEN presidents asking authors not to withdraw, his wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, was one of the authors who withdrew their works from consideration. Because of the controversy, PEN American canceled its 2024 literary awards ceremony and its annual literary gala.

The International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to sheltering writers, artists, and journalists whose expression of their ideas have made them the targets of threats of violence. In 2006, ICORN grew out of the Cities of Asylum Network originally founded in 1993 by members of the International Parliament of Writers, who conceived the idea in response to the assassination of writers in Algeria. Salman Rushdie, along with Wole Soyinka, Vaclav Havel, Margaret Drabble, J. M. Coetzee, Jaques Derrida, and Harold Pinter, helped found the original Cities of Asylum Network. Since 2006, it has grown into a web of locations in more than 70 cities that offer long-term refuge to those persecuted for their ideas. ICORN believes in ensuring that those it shelters are safe and can continue expressing their ideas. In Knife, ICORN is the subject of the lecture that Rushdie and Henry Reece were invited to Chautauqua to deliver. Ironically, just before this speech Rushdie was attacked, at least in part because of his own exercise of free speech. ICORN’s inclusion in the book is both a story element in the narrative and a thematic element that highlights The Importance of Free Speech and The Devastating Impact of Violence.