TRIUMPH OF LIFE

Salman Rushdie's latest literary feat, his near-fatal stabbing, and the invincible legacy he's left behind.

- ERICA WAGNER

Victory City, Salman Rushdie’s beautiful, powerful new novel, begins with a wounded little girl. It opens in southern India in the 14th century: in the aftermath of a battle, the widows of the defeated soldiers commit mass suicide by self-immolation. The nine-year-old Pampa Kampana’s father died long before the war, but her mother walks into the fire, and the little girl watches as her flesh is consumed. In that harrowing moment, the spirit of a great goddess enters Pampa Kampana, and her destiny is sealed. She will live for centuries; she will establish a magnificent kingdom, but her triumphs will be tempered by suffering, and her wisdom is the deepest understanding of loss.

Salman’s 15th novel was completed before the dreadful attack that nearly took his life. In August last year, he was about to speak at the Chautauqua Institution in New York state when a man rushed onto the stage and stabbed the author at least a dozen times. Members of the audience helped pull the attacker off, and Salman was airlifted to hospital. Of course, I was horrified by this appalling brutality—as was the whole world—but it was especially affecting as I have been lucky enough to call myself his friend for the past 15 years.