Knife

This is mostly a straightforward account of what it is like to be the subject of an attempted murder in public, to recover from life-threatening wounds, to adjust to physical and psychological damage over long months afterwards, and to learn what the most important values were in life. It includes one section of imaginary conversation between the author and his assailant which shed light on the frame of mind of the former and seems to have served a therapeutic function. To me, the tone was not one of conceit or celebration of his own superiority, but that of a man truly shaken to the core, which I found sympathetic. He finds himself forced to think back to the fatwa issued against his life over thirty years ago which took away his ability to go out in public with ease without fear of bloody violence. He was pleased to find that many people were on his side hoping for him to pull through and return to his art someday. He tells us that he had to write about this painful episode because for a while those were the only words he had to give, that the stories would not come for him until this all came out.