Six months after being stabbed in the United States, British writer Salman Rushdie is releasing a new novel, Victory Citythe “epic story of a woman” in the XIVe century that will erect a city, undergo exile and threats in a patriarchal world.
Completed before his stabbing, this novel — undoubtedly one of the most anticipated of the year — by the Indian-born author, is presented as the translation of the historical epic of Pampa Kampana, a young orphan with of magical powers by a goddess, who will create the city of Bisnaga, literally Victory City.
The writer will not do any promotion to present his 15e novel which comes out on Tuesday in the United States and Thursday in the United Kingdom, warned his agent Andrew Wylie in the British daily The Guardianeven “if his recovery is progressing” since the attack which almost cost him his life on August 12th.
A young man lunged at him armed with a knife as he prepared to speak at a conference in Chautauqua in upstate New York near Great Lake Erie .
Rushdie, a naturalized American who has lived in New York for 20 years, has lost the sight of one eye and the use of one hand, his agent announced in October.
The attack shocked Western countries, but was hailed by extremists in Muslim countries such as Iran and Pakistan.
Since then, the author has remained distant from the media, but has resumed speaking on the social network Twitter since last December, most often to relay the reviews of his new novel published in the press.
However, several events are planned to accompany the release of Victory Citysuch as an internet-streamed conference with British authors Margaret Atwood and Neil Gaiman.
The words “winners”
An icon of free speech since living under a fatwa for writing the Satanic Verses book in 1988, Rushdie still champions the power of words in Victory City.
With the mission of “giving women an equal place in a patriarchal world”, according to the summary of its publisher Penguin Random House, its heroine and poet Pampa Kampana, who will live nearly 250 years, will also be the witness of “the pride of those in power”, and will witness the rise and then the destruction of Bisnaga.
Her legacy to the world, however, will remain her epic tale, which she buries as a message for future generations. And the novel ends with this sentence: “words are the only winners”.
In the New York Timesthe American writer Colum McCann, friend of Rushdie affirms that the author “says something very deep in Victory City “. “He says ‘you can never take away from people the basic ability to tell stories. In the face of danger, even in the face of death, he manages to say that all we have is the power to tell stories”.
Born in Bombay in 1947, Rushdie published his first novel Grimus in 1975 and rose to world stardom six years later with The Midnight Children which won him the Booker Prize in the UK.
Victory City will be released next September in France under its original title, its French publishing house Actes Sud told AFP.