Salman Rushdie makes surprise public appearance for first-ever ‘Lifetime Disturbing the Peace Award’

‘I don’t feel at all mysterious. But it made life a little simple,’ Rushdie says about his mystery appearance

Salman Rushdie made a rare public appearance to collect a literary award in New York as organisers kept his whereabouts a secret from general attendees as a matter of security because of the attack on him last year.

Only a handful of the more than 100 attendees had advance notice about the author.

Rushdie received the first-ever "Lifetime Disturbing the Peace Award" on Tuesday, presented by the Vaclav Havel Center on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

His attendance wasn't publicised until the evening of the event due to security concerns following his stabbing in August 2022 at a literary festival in western New York. Deputies from the city police were reportedly stationed outside the venue.

“I apologise for being a mystery guest,” Rushdie said after being introduced by Reading Lolita in Tehran author Azar Nafisi at the annual "Living in Truth" ceremony.

“I don’t feel at all mysterious. But it made life a little simpler.”

The Havel center, founded in 2012 as the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation, is named after the Czech playwright and dissident who became the last president of Czechoslovakia after the fall of the Communist regime in the late 1980s.

The centre has a mission to advance the legacy of Havel, who died in 2011 and was known for championing human rights and free expression.

Rushdie, 76, has written more than a dozen novels that have constantly made him a target for extremists.

Attacks against Rushdie have been feared since the late 1980s and the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses, which Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini condemned as blasphemous for passages referring to the Prophet Muhammad.

Khomeini issued a decree calling for Rushdie’s death after the publication of his book, forcing the author into hiding.

He spent much of his speech praising Havel, a close friend whom he remembered as being among the first government leaders to defend him after the novelist was driven into hiding.

Rushdie said Havel was “kind of a hero of mine” who was “able to be an artist at the same time as being an activist".

“He was inspirational to me as for many, many writers, and to receive an award in his name is a great honour,” he added.

Rushdie lost his vision in his right eye and the use of one hand after being repeatedly stabbed on stage last August. The man accused of stabbing him, Hadi Matar, will stand trial on 8 January 2024.

Rushdie last month announced the release of a new memoir, titled Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, which he said was a "necessary book" for him to write to "take charge of what happened, and to answer violence with art".

Alaa Abdel-Fattah, the imprisoned Egyptian activist, was given the Disturbing the Peace Award to a Courageous Writer at Risk. His aunt, acclaimed author and translator Adhaf Soueif, accepted on his behalf and said he was aware of the prize.

“He's very grateful,” she said. “He was particularly pleased by the name of the award, ‘Disturbing the Peace'.

"This really tickled him."