"Terrorism must not terrorize us." This is the message conveyed by Salman Rushdie, who reappeared publicly Thursday night for the first time since the knife attack that nearly killed him last August. The British writer was present at a gala of a writers' organization in New York. The famous Indian-born novelist, naturalized American, received an honorary award from the group for the defense of freedom of expression and literature, PEN America, of which he was the president.

The 75-year-old intellectual, wearing glasses with a black lens in his right eye, was first photographed on the red carpet at the American Museum of Natural History near Central Park in Manhattan. His presence had not been announced and he addressed, moved, the 700 guests of the gala. PEN America, an association that works for freedom of expression, has never been more "important," Salman Rushdie said in a statement from PEN America. "Violence must not deter us. The struggle continues," he proclaimed in French, Spanish and English.

"I owe them my life"

On August 12, he was invited to a literary conference in Chautauqua, a small town in northwestern New York State, near Great Lake Erie. At the time of speaking, a young American of Lebanese origin suspected of being a sympathizer of Shiite Iran had thrown himself on him, armed with a knife, and had stabbed him a dozen times.



Onlookers and guards subdued the assailant as soon as he was arrested, charged and imprisoned since pending trial. "If it weren't for these people, I certainly wouldn't be here today. I was the target that day, but they were heroes. I owe them my life," Rushdie said.

Post-traumatic stress disorder

His literary agent, Andrew Wylie, revealed in October that he had lost the sight of one eye and the use of one hand. In February, during the release of his latest novel Victory City, the writer told The New Yorker magazine, in his first interview since his attack, to have a lot of trouble writing and suffer from post-traumatic stress.

Adulated by elites in the West, hated by Muslim extremists in Iran or Pakistan, Salman Rushdie is an icon of freedom of expression. He has been living since 1989 under death threat from a fatwa issued by Iran, after the publication of his book The Satanic Verses.

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