Sir Salman has to have injections into the eye once a month. He says his condition is currently stable, but that if he loses his sight altogether he will be left in his personal version of Room 101 – the torture chamber in [George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/george-orwell-nineteen-eight-four-bbc/) in which people are subjected to the thing they fear most.
For reasons he cannot explain, he made no attempt to run away or fight him off, saying: “I just stood there like a pinata and let him smash me”.
His reflection on what happened is that, when an attack comes out of the blue, “fear, panic, paralysis take over from rational thought” and that in the presence of violence “our minds no longer know how to work”.
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**From The Telegraph’s Associate Editor, Gordon Rayner:**
# Sir Salman fears going blind
In [his memoir, Knife,](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/non-fiction/knife-review-salman-rushdie-new-book-horrific-masterpiece/) the author says his greatest fear is blindness. Having lost one eye in [the attack on him in August 2022](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/15/salman-rushdie-interview-stabbed-attack/), he fears losing sight in the other.
He has [macular degeneration](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/08/macular-degeneration-sight-light-therapy/) – a condition of the retina that can lead to loss of vision – in his left eye, and has been receiving treatment for several years.
Sir Salman has to have injections into the eye once a month. He says his condition is currently stable, but that if he loses his sight altogether he will be left in his personal version of Room 101 – the torture chamber in [George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/george-orwell-nineteen-eight-four-bbc/) in which people are subjected to the thing they fear most.
# He saw attacker coming, but did not run
Sir Salman says he saw the masked knifeman coming towards him at the Chautauqua Institution in New York State and stood up, “transfixed” as he watched him [approach “hard and low”](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/12/salman-rushdie-attacker-new-york-hard-low-squat-missile/).
For reasons he cannot explain, he made no attempt to run away or fight him off, saying: “I just stood there like a pinata and let him smash me”.
His reflection on what happened is that, when an attack comes out of the blue, “fear, panic, paralysis take over from rational thought” and that in the presence of violence “our minds no longer know how to work”.
Sir Salman fears going blind
In [his memoir, Knife,](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/non-fiction/knife-review-salman-rushdie-new-book-horrific-masterpiece/) the author says his greatest fear is blindness. Having lost one eye in [the attack on him in August 2022](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/15/salman-rushdie-interview-stabbed-attack/), he fears losing sight in the other.
He has [macular degeneration](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/08/macular-degeneration-sight-light-therapy/) – a condition of the retina that can lead to loss of vision – in his left eye, and has been receiving treatment for several years.
**Continue reading ⬇️**
[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/15/seven-things-learned-from-sir-salman-rushdie-memoir-knife/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/15/seven-things-learned-from-sir-salman-rushdie-memoir-knife/)