Just moments before he was scheduled to give a speech at the Chautauqua Institution in New York State, the author was repeatedly stabbed during the attack, suffering life-altering injuries, including the loss of his right eye.
Days prior to the discussion, the 76-year-old had a dream in which a man was spearing him in an “amphitheatre,” so he decided not to go. This was his first significant TV interview since the attack, which he gave to Anderson Cooper on the program 60 Minutes.
“I woke up and I was quite shaken,” he stated.
Because of the dream, I told my wife Eliza, “You know I don’t want to go.” ‘Don’t be ridiculous, it’s a dream,’ I thought to myself.
When his novel The Satanic Verses was published in 1989, Iran’s then-leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa demanding his execution since many Muslims view it as blasphemous.
