HAWTHORNDEN FOUNDATION EVENT

The Front List: Salman Rushdie in conversation with Mishal Husain

  • Sat 17 Aug 17:30 - 18:30
  • McEwan Hall
  • BSL Interpreted, Captioned
Attend in person
  • McEwan Hall
  • £20.00 [concessions £17.50/£14.00]
Watch online

Pay what you can to watch online. Available live, then on-demand until 23:59 on Tuesday 31 December.

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The Front List: Salman Rushdie in conversation with Mishal Husain
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Salman Rushdie will appear remotely while Mishal Husain, alongside special guests, will appear on stage at McEwan Hall.


In August 2022, literary luminary Salman Rushdie was stabbed on stage as he delivered a talk on artistic freedom and writers in exile – more than 30 years after a Fatwa was issued on his life. In a very rare interview, as part of our McEwan series of events, we are honoured to present Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder – his intimate and arresting account of the day of the attack and its aftermath. ‘“This was a necessary book for me to write: a way to take charge of what happened, and to answer violence with art,’” Rushdie says of this extraordinary book. While Salman Rushdie will appear remotely, Mishal Husain, leading broadcaster and host of BBC’s Today programme, will appear on-stage alongside special guests who will help illuminate his extraordinary career as one of the most beloved, and incendiary, novelists of our time.  

Salman Rushdie is the author of 15 previous novels, including Midnight’s Children (for which he won the Booker Prize and the Best of the Booker), Shame, The Satanic Verses, The Moor’s Last Sigh, and Quichotte, all of which have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He is a former president of PEN America and the recipient of the PEN Centenary Courage Award.


Copies of Salman Rushdie’s new book Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder are available to purchase with your ticket (£20.00 RRP - £18.00 when purchased with a ticket). Pre-purchased books can be picked up at the time of the event.

There will be no signing after this event as Salman Rushdie is appearing remotely.

Please note this event takes place at McEwan Hall, Teviot Pl, Edinburgh EH8 9AG. The Front List is presented in partnership with Underbelly.

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