Salman Rushdie Testifies at Trial of Man Accused of Stabbing Him: 'I Was Screaming Because of the Pain'

Salman Rushdie testified at the trial for the man accused of stabbing him repeatedly onstage at a literary festival in New York state in 2022.

Hadi Matar, 27, of New Jersey, is on trial facing attempted murder and assault charges related to the brutal Aug. 2022 attack on Rushdie, which left him permanently blind in his right eye and unable to use his right hand.

The Satanic Verses author, 77, was speaking at the historic Chautauqua Institution in western New York State when Matar allegedly stormed the stage and began stabbing Rushdie in the neck, chest and abdomen, New York State Police said.

On the stand, Rushdie said he was sitting in a chair on stage when “this assault began,” The Guardian reports.

“I was aware of this person rushing at me from my righthand side,” he said. “I was struck by his eyes which seemed dark and ferocious to me.”

Rushdie recounted how he initially thought he’d been “punched,” but “very soon afterwards I saw blood on my clothes.”

The author said he believed he had been struck about 50 times, leaving him in what he described as a “lake of blood,” France24 reports.

“Everything happened very quickly. I was stabbed repeatedly, and most painfully in my eye,” said Rushdie, per The Guardian. “I struggled to get away. I held up my hand in self-defense and was stabbed through that.”

Rushdie said he tried getting up to escape the attack, but fell to the ground.

“I was very badly injured and I couldn’t stand up any more,” Rushdie said, per The Guardian. “I was screaming because of the pain.”

The interviewer, Henry Reese, also sustained injuries in the attack. Matar has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

His trial began on Monday, Feb. 10, in Mayville, with district attorney Jason Schmidt telling jurors how the alleged attack unfolded in front of about 1,000 people, just after Rushdie appeared on stage, local station KPVI reports.

A masked young man “appeared from the rear of the theater” and started rushing the stage, said Schmidt, before he “forcefully and efficiently and with speed plunged the knife into Mr. Rushdie over and over again.”

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Rushdie has received death threats ever since 1989, starting with the publication when his novel The Satanic Verses, which was declared by some as blasphemous.

Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa for Muslims around the world to assassinate him, leading the author to go into hiding until 1998, when the Iranian government called off the order to kill him.

Feeling safer, he moved to New York and became an advocate for free speech.

He wrote about the attack in his 2024 book, Knife: Meditations After An Attempted Murder.