On a number of occasions recently I have searched for an update on Salman Rushdie’s condition following the brutal attack upon him at a literary event in rural New York in the summer just gone – and mostly have came up short. His (super)agent, Andrew Wylie, did divulge the extent of Rushdie’s injuries, which include the loss of an eye, during an El País interview – reported upon here at The Guardian.
Now, and without having to take the initiative, on Radio Four’s Today programme this morning, Mishal Husain spoke with Alan Yentob, a long time friend of Salman Rushdie (at about 2:19:00 – usually available for about 30 days). We are told that very recently Rushdie has “listened in” at a couple of special readings of his works by friends and colleagues, amongst them Yentob, who says that Rushdie is working hard at getting well, that he remains optimistic and his humor as razor sharp as ever.
Very good news indeed.
And … his new book, called Victory City, finished before he sustained such dreadful injuries is due out in February 2023. Yentob actually said January, but I have checked at Penguin Random House and it is indeed February 7 in the US and February 9 in the UK. From what Yentob says and following the publisher’s blurb we will be taken back anew to Rushdie’s literary roots in a magical, mystical, shape shifting India – this time to the 14th century and to the tale of a little girl possessed by a powerful goddess and sent on a divine mission to guide the fate of a great city and expose and conquer the patriarchy. A mission that will span centuries, and be interwoven with the city’s rise and fall and with it that of its rulers and its citizens.
Now if that doesn’t sound like the Salman Rushdie that gave us Midnight’s Children – who could believe it! – forty odd years ago.