Author Salman Rushdie, marking his return to the literary world after a violent attack last year that left him permanently injured, says he doesn't want pity.
“I’ve always tried very hard not to adopt the role of a victim,” he recently told New Yorker magazine editor David Remnick. The story marked Rushdie’s first interview since he was stabbed.
His reappearance as a public figure also included a recent real-life visit to the New York City office of his agent, Andrew Wylie; promotion for his new book, "Victory City," completed before the stabbing; and a vow to eschew feelings of bitterness six months after the attack in western New York.
In 1989, Rushdie defied advice to lie low after Iran's late supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, put a virtual contract on his life in response to his novel "The Satanic Verses," which many Muslims found blasphemous or at least outrageously irreverent.
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Rushdie has also expressed little desire to embrace a recluse's life after the midsummer violence at a public, outdoor discussion in Chautauqua, New York.
