London. Salman Rushdie’s account of the stabbing that left him blind in his right eye is among the contenders announced Thursday for a prestigious nonfiction literary prize.
Rushdie’s memoir “Knife: Meditations After an Attempt Murder” is among 12 books on the longlist for the £50,000 ($66,000) Baillie Gifford Prize.
The 77-year-old British-American novelist recounts being attacked at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York in 2022 as he was about to give a lecture on how to keep writers safe from harm. A New Jersey man, Hadi Matar, is awaiting trial for the stabbing.
The award judges called the book “brutally clear, honest and, best of all, funny.”
Rushdie won the Booker Prize for fiction in 1981 for “Midnight’s Children.” He spent years in hiding after Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or edict, in 1989 calling for his death for alleged blasphemy in his novel “The Satanic Verses.”
Other semifinalists for the nonfiction prize include Australian Richard Flanagan for his memoir “Question 7” and several works on Asian history, including Gary J. Bass’s “Judgement at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia” and Viet Thanh Nguyen’s “A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial.”
Founded in 1999, the Baillie Gifford Prize recognises English-language books from any country covering current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography and the arts. It has been credited with bringing an eclectic list of fact-based books to a wider audience.
Last year’s winner was John Vaillant’s real-life climate change thriller “Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World.”
Finalists for the 2024 prize will be announced on October 10, and the winner will be crowned on November 19 at a ceremony in London.
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– 2024-09-07 22:11:45
