Salman Rushdie’s knife attack memoir longlisted for Baillie Gifford Prize

Sir Salman Rushdie has been longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for a book that describes the knife attack that left him blind in one eye.

If the author, 77, wins the non-fiction book award he would become the first Booker Prize winner to have earned both honours.

Sir Salman released Knife: Meditations After An Attempted Murder earlier this year, in which he recounts the attack on stage at the Chautauqua Institution in New York state in August 2022.

He won the Booker Prize in 1981 with Midnight’s Children, about the birth of India.

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Also in competition for the double is Australian author Richard Flanagan, who became a Booker winner in 2014 with his novel The Narrow Road To The Deep North, and is up for the non-fiction award for his memoir Question 7.

According to Baillie Gifford judges, Sir Salman’s book “doesn’t back away from the knife attack that almost ended his life in 2022”.

They added: “Instead, he confronts it head on, with prose that is brutally clear, honest and, best of all, funny. Knife is a very personal statement for Rushdie’s own art – and art in general.”

Sir Salman has faced death threats since the publication of The Satanic Verses, about the life of the prophet Mohammed, which is considered blasphemous by some Muslims.

In 2022 he was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour.

Hadi Matar, the man accused of attacking Sir Salman, maintains his innocence. He is due to stand trial in October this year and the writer is expected to give evidence.

Also on the Baillie Gifford longlist is Vietnam-born Viet Thanh Nguyen – who won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with his debut novel The Sympathizer – for the memoir, A Man Of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial.

British authors who could win the £50,000 prize include: Rachel Clarke for heart transplant story The Story Of A Heart; Rachel Cockerell’s Jewish emigration story Melting Point; Family, Memory And The Search For A Promised Land; Sue Prideaux’s artist biography Wild Thing: A Life Of Paul Gauguin; and Helen Scales’ ecology book What The Wild Sea Can Be: The Future Of The World’s Ocean.

Clarke has been longlisted previously while Prideaux has appeared on the shortlist.

Isabel Hilton, chairwoman of judges, said: “It is, of course, a list of remarkable and outstanding books, and they shed new and brilliant light on our contemporary world through explorations of history, of memory, of science and nature.

“Collectively this wonderful reflection of creativity, of critical thinking and great writing left us in no doubt that the non-fiction world is overflowing with energy and talent.”

The shortlist will be announced on October 10 at Cheltenham Literature Festival, with the winner to be revealed on November 19.

The Baillie Gifford Prize shortlisted authors will receive a prize of £5,000.

Last year, John Vaillant’s Fire Weather: A True Story From A Hotter World about the wildfires in Canada won the prize.