'It was a colossal attack'

Salman Rushdie breaks his silence over near-fatal kniting

- CHRISTOPHER BUCKTIN

SALMAN Rushdie has spoken for the first time about the frenzied knife assault that came within millimetres of killing him. 

The author said the “colossal attack” last year has left him struggling to write again as he recovers from the trauma.

The 75-year-old was left blind in one eye and with severe nerve damage in his left hand after being stabbed on stage at a literary event in New York last August.

He has lost three stone and said he has had nightmares and, while he has “tried very hard not to adopt the role of a victim”, he suffers post-traumatic stress.