On August 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie was attacked by a young man wielding a knife. Rushdie had just taken the stage to deliver a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution, along with Henry Reece, who co-founded the City of Asylum Pittsburgh project about which he and Rushdie had been invited to speak. Rushdie stood, paralyzed with shock that such a thing could be happening; he did not try to run away or even do more than raise a hand to try to defend himself as the man repeatedly stabbed him. Sudden violence, Rushdie reflects, shatters a person’s reality and leaves them unable to process what is happening.

The attack was even more shocking because just the day before, Rushdie had basked in Chautauqua’s beauty and peace while reminiscing with Henry and his wife, Diane, about how Rushdie’s own International Cities of Refuge Network inspired Henry and Diane’s Pittsburgh project. He was filled with happiness: He was recently married to writer Eliza Griffiths and had just completed a new book he was proud of. He later learned that, on that peaceful day before, his attacker, Hadi Matar, was already on the Chautauqua grounds.