Salman Rushdie's 22nd book, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, is his account of the attack on 12 August 2022. It is a powerful and necessary defence of the principles of free speech; principles for which Rushdie, over the course of the past 35 years, has paid dearly. The book is dedicated to the men and women who saved my life, and then, of course, the helicopter, the gentleman who put a thumb on my nose, and I was dragged off